Good news for doom mongers

The warmenistas will love this – oh, well, can’t begrudge them a bit of fun – it’s been a shocking year for the poor blighters. The Bureau has come out and labelled 2009 the second hottest year on record:

“2009 ends Australia’s warmest decade on record, with a decadal mean temperature anomaly of +0.48C (above the 1961-90 average),” the Bureau of Meterology said.

“In Australia, each decade since the 1940s has been warmer than the preceding decade. In contrast, decadal temperature variations during the first few decades of Australia’s climate record do not display any specific trend. This suggests an apparent shift in Australia’s climate from one characterised by natural variability to one increasingly characterised also by a trend to warmer temperatures.”

In a statement, the bureau also noted that the World Meteorological Organisation stated that 2009 is expected to be the globe’s fifth warmest year on record (about 0.44C above the 1961-90 average).

And the moronic Peter “Where’s Penny” Garrett leaps on it as evidence of “global warming”:

Environment Minister Peter Garrett said today the finding that Australia’s annual mean temperature for 2009 was 0.9C above the 1961-90 average exposed Tony Abbott’s false climate change claim that global warming has stopped.

“This false and misleading claim is today shown to be completely at odds with the rigorous scientific findings of the independent experts at the Bureau of Meteorology,” Mr Garrett said.

“This is the latest Abbott climate-change clanger to be exposed by the independent experts and once again shows why Mr Abbott cannot be trusted when it comes to climate change.”

Mr Garrett said the weather records underlined the need for a carbon pollution reduction scheme to reduce global warming. (source)

Where’s Penny again? Where’s Kevin? When those two aren’t around, it’s left to the pea-brained rock-star to deal with climate matters. So what does this actually say? It actually says that the surface temperature in Australia is the second highest since 1850 [Update: actually, since 1910, which makes it even less relevant]. Big freaking deal. The planet was at the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850, so guess what, it’s getting warmer.

What doesn’t it say?

• It doesn’t prove any link with CO2 emissions, so Garrett’s link to the CPRS is total nonsense
• It doesn’t say that the satellite record shows far less warming (almost none) since 2001 (see below)
• It doesn’t say the planet has been warmer previously – it has, many times – nor that the rate of warming is anything unusual.

In fact, Dr Roy Spencer has just posted the December anomaly from UAH:

Dr Spencer comments thus:

While the large amount of year-to-year variability in global temperatures seen in the above plot makes it difficult to provide meaningful statements about long-term temperature trends in the context of global warming, the running 25-month average suggests there has been no net warming in the last 11 years or so. (source)

Which would you trust? Satellite data, or thermometer records that are fudged and “adjusted” and “homogenized” by the likes of CRU?

UPDATE at 3 pm: And of course, every two-bit rag, newsletter and gossip sheet in Australia is now running the story. Stuffed full of alarmists, the editorial offices have had a pretty tough time, what with the climate not co-operating, and Climategate. But now they can breathe a collective sigh of relief as a big, copper-bottomed scare story finally breaks (except it isn’t if you actually stopped for five seconds to think about it).