[jyl]

Interesting article. Some excerpts:

- the decade that just ended included nine of the 10 hottest years on record.
- record retreat of snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere at the end of the melt season and a near-record retreat of Arctic sea ice.
- Global temperatures have been above the 20th-century average for 34 consecutive years. In 2010, the combined land and ocean annual surface temperature was 1.12 degrees above average.
- Last year was also the wettest on record in terms of global average precipitation,
- 2010 managed to be a record-warm year despite the fact that two natural factors - less solar activity and the onset of La Nina, an irregular cycle that brings cooler temperatures to the Pacific Ocean - would have exerted a cooling effect.

And I liked this:

"The United States started off 2010 with extremely low winter temperatures and snowfall that broke records in several locations, including Washington and Baltimore, and prompted lawmakers such as Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) to question whether climate change was happening. But the overall average annual temperature for the contiguous United States in 2010 was above normal, resulting in the 23rd-warmest year on record."

Can we agree that anyone who offers an opinion about global climate change based on whether it is or isn't, warmer or cooler, or drier or wetter, where he happens to be standing at that particular time - is an evident idiot?