Exeter (UK) - The Met Office and the University of East Anglia are forecasting that global temperatures for 2009 will be 0.4 degrees Celsius above the long-term average, making 2009 the 5th warmest year on record.


They report current Pacific ocean effects like La Niña, which causes cold waters to come nearer the surface and cool the air, to be seasonal.

Professor Chris Folland from the Met Office Hadley Centre said, "Phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña have a significant influence on global surface temperature. Warmer conditions in 2009 are expected because the strong cooling influence of the recent powerful La Niña has given way to a weaker La Niña. Further warming to record levels is likely once a moderate El Niño develops."



According to the report, cycles such as El Niño and La Niña can "mask the underlying warming trends." Professor Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, said "The fact that 2009, like 2008, will not break records does not mean that global warming has gone away. What matters is the underlying rate of warming - the period 2001-2007, with an average of 14.44 °C, was 0.21 °C warmer than corresponding values for the period 1991-2000."






There's a link showing a temperature slope. It's composed of temperatures over the past 150 years arranged from warmest to coolest, and then color coded by year range. The overall temperature range shows approximately a one degree Celsius tip between the average highs and lows over the past 150 years.

In 2007, the Met Office predicted that 2014 will be 0.3 degrees Celsius above the 2004 average temperature, which is currently the 5th hottest on record.