The Warming Earth Blows Hot, Cold and Chaotic

• JANUARY 2, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO -- Three independent research groups have concluded that 2008 was a comparatively cool year on planet Earth -- a feverish chill on our warming world.

The year's average global temperature was the 9th or 10th warmest since reliable record-keeping began in 1850, and the coldest since the turn of the 21st century, according to separate surveys by the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization, NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, and the U.S. National Climatic Data Center. Each used slightly different methods to rank 2008 based on world-wide land and sea-surface temperatures through November.

For the time being, no one knows>>>