By Lubos Motl, The Reference Frame

One month ago, we noticed that November 2007 was the coldest month since January 2000. Well, the RSS MSU satellite data prepared by remss.com show that December was even cooler. The December anomaly was -0.046C, compared to -0.014C in November. That means that December 2007 was also cooler than the average December from 1979. Moreover, we can finally complete the ranking of the years!

Let me start with forecasts in the mainstream media. In January 2007, we were informed that 2007 was either likely or certain to surpass 1998 and become the world’s warmest year on record by most media. They justified this statement by referring to scientists who have combined greenhouse gases with the observed El Nino. Many sources, such as the New York Sun, even gave you the probability that 2007 would be the hottest year as 60 percent.

However, the greenhouse gases are not too important and El Nino was replaced by La Nina. As a consequence, RSS MSU data for the lower troposphere show that 2007 was the coldest year in this century so far. In alarmist jargon, it was the ninth hottest year on record: the most recent year was cooler than all other years in this century as well as 1998 (by a whopping 0.41C) and even 1995. Read more here.

The RSS MSU satellite data for the land and ocean between 70S and 82.5N where virtually all the world’s population resides shows a negative departure from normal for the second straight month and the largest since January 2000. The trend which has been flat the last decade has now turned down. Read blog here.

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Icecap note: There continues to be differences as Lubos points out between all of the data sources.  Roy Spencer’s the UAH AMSU plot of lower tropospheric global temperatures (the most accurate estimates) do not show the downturn or negative anomaly yet but note how the anomaly dropped one half of 1 degree from January to December.

See full size image here