The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has in a preliminary report has concluded that last year the global mean temperature was 14.3 °C which makes 2008 “the tenth warmest year on a record that dates back to 1850.”

“The ten warmest years on record have occurred since 1997. Global temperatures for 2000-2008 now stand almost 0.2 °C warmer than the average for the decade 1990–1999.”

Climate scientists at the Met Office Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at University of East Anglia says that the global mean temperature for 2008 “is slightly down on earlier years” due to La Nina, an ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that has a cooling effect on the earth.

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You might have heard from the climate change deniers that this year will be the coolest globally this century. And that is true.

Newly released data from the UK Met Office shows that during the first half of 2008 the global temperatures was more than 0.1 Celcius cooler than any other year after 2000. The reason for this is La Nina, an ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that has a cooling effect on the earth.

But this doesn’t mean the deniers are correct about anything else. Scientists still expects that 2008 will be the 10th warmest year since 1850. And the UK Met Office says that the global temperatures will continue to rise again when La Nina eases away.

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