2008: "10th hottest year on record"

All the headlines are screaming this fact today, published in the World Meteorological Organisation's annual climate report. But before we all go and sacrifice a methane-belching ruminant at the altar of Al Gore and the Holy Church of AGW, let's put a bit of sanity round it:

• "On record" means since about 1850, a blink of an eye in geological terms which doesn't include the higher temperatures experienced on earth during the Medieval Warm Period
• Since temperatures have been climbing steadily since the Little Ice Age, you would expect each year to be the warmest (and this trend started way before evil capitalist CO2 emitting industries and economies were on the scene)
• If 11 out of the last 12 years are supposedly the warmest on record, then the fact that 2008 is the 10th warmest actually demonstrates a significant cooling... and in fact in Australia, 2008 is the coolest year since 2001...
  

Next story please.

Read it here (and a thousand other places).