20 Years of Temperature Stability

The British Meteorological Office quietly announced on December 24 that it has revised its estimates of future warming.  It is now predicting that temperature increases will not exceed 1998 levels until about 2017, which would represent 20 years of no temperature increase, despite steady increases in greenhouse gases.  You can see a report on it here.

Temperatures rise and fall in cycles, and you can draw whatever conclusion you like from the temperature record, depending on where you decide to start and stop.  If you compare the high world average temperatures from 1936 with those from 2011, you'd see 75 years of almost no increase in temperature.  If you look at the end of the 1960s until 2011, you'll see a more pronounced increase. If you look at the temperature record from the early 1800's to the present, you'll see an increase in temperatures, in fits and starts,  that is clearly not affected in any significant way by the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere after World War II.  That post war period has, not coincidentally, provided some of the greatest agricultural production and increased living standards  in history.