So who here doubts that the overall global temperature, both the atmosphere and the ocean is rising?
Anybody?
Yes, the globe has been recovering from the Little Ice Age since 1850. The temperatures have been rising at the rate of .5C per hundred years since that time. Lately however (for the last ten years or so (depending on who you choose to believe) the temperatures have remained static. Some claim that the temperatures began to drop 8 or so years ago but the evidence for that contention is lacking.
More recently the temperatures have begun a very slight drop. There are four major global temperature data monitors, three of them have recorded a drop in the overall temperatures....even the CRU at Hadley the originator of the CLIMATEGATE revelations. One of the monitors claims a .3C drop the other two put it at around a .1C drop. GISS (led by Hansen) is the only monitor that claims a rise (+.2C) And that by fraud of course...
"The areas GISS shows to be heating up the most are so short of weather stations that only 25 per cent of the figures are based on actual temperature readings. The rest are simply conjectured by GISS. This is not the first time Dr Hansens temperature record has come under expert fire. Three years ago, GISS was forced to revise many of its figures when it was shown that wholesale adjustments had been made, revising older temperatures downwards and post-2000 figures upwards"
Paper: On the recovery from the Little Ice Age
So, yes overall the temps have been rising for the last 160 years or so, and now they have entered into a period of leveling off or slightly dropping for the last 8 years or so. You must remember though that most processes that take place on the planet take decades or hundreds of years to occur. Then the next cycle begins. The Sun of course can have major and near immediate impact on the climate of the Earth as many researches are beginning to discover.