The world is getting warmer right? Wrong – at least wrong if you are looking at global temperatures over the next 10 or 20 years. New research reported at the UN’s World Climate Conference has suggested that the world is entering a natural cooling trend associated with cyclic changes in the atmosphere and ocean currents in the North Atlantic (known as the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Atlantic Meridional Oscillation). The danger is that people might see this cooling as an excuse to take their eyes off the longer term global temperature trend which remains upwards. Early evidence of cooling may have come in the form of increased sea ice cover in the Arctic this summer in comparison to the extreme lows of the last couple of years. The research is described in New Scientist, Issue 2725 [12 September 2009].
Tim O'Hare 
What a prescient title I wrote for this blog entry… “Here comes the cold” – it certainly did – for the best part of two weeks now I have had a monster cold which only now is properly dying down. If I had gone to a doctor I reckon I would be able to claim that I was one of the growing number of swine flu victims. Oink.