 Date: 07/02/19

 Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF Science Editor

Average global temperature has been falling for the last 3 years, despite rising atmospheric CO2
levels.

21st century average global surface temperature change and CO2 rise; graph GWPF
A big story at the beginning of each year is the release of the global surface temperature of the previous year. A big
story certainly but not often a surprising one. Since the beginning of the century it didn’t change much from year to
year until the 2015/16 super El Nino came along. Then the temperature went up, as usual, and now it’s coming
down again.
2018 was the fourth warmest year of the instrumental period (started 1850) having a temperature anomaly of 0.91 +/- 0.1 °C – cooler than 2017
and closer to the fifth warmest year than the third. But of course there are those that don’t like to say the global surface temperature has
declined.
The UK Met Office released the 2018 global temperature data as part of a press release about its forecast for global temperatures for the next five
years, basically saying that the high temperatures will continue, despite their elevation over previous years by the El Nino and their coming down
afterwards! Their press release was entitled, “Forecast suggests Earth’s warmest period on record.”
It says: The forecast for the global average surface temperature for the five-year period to 2023 is predicted to be near or above 1.0 °C above
pre-industrial levels, says the Met Office. If the observations for the next five years track the forecast that would make the decade from 2014 to
2023 the warmest run of years since records began.
No mention then of the events that elevated the global 2015 and subsequent years, the EL Nino and the Pacific marine heatwave.
As we all know, especially the Met Office, forecasting the future is fraught with difficulties, the main one is that you are forecasting the future! The
Met Office does not have a very good track record in this regard.