You know its odd, but we can probably expect wild swings in weather behaviors whether the globe is getting warmer OR colder.
But we'll know that you are right Mdn2000, IF we see a persistent decline in overall global temperatures over time.
Right now, most of the experts seem to think the global is warming up.
As I am not an expert in this field, I sort of leave it to them to tell me what's happening.
editec, the only way the temperatures are going up is if they cherry pick their data such as last summer when they chose to use a single weather report from a airport to get their "record" temperature reading of 105 degrees. Or the continuing rewrite of historical data sets that GISS and HADCRU have been caught doing. Much less the New Zealand group that has been caught red handed and now the New Zealand government no longer uses their own official data sets as they are fraudulent.
On the other hand...we have now seen two very hard winters in a row. Last years was devestating both in the northern and southern hemispheres, and this years has certainly started off with a bang as evidenced by the Europe wide problems with early snow.
Read the foreign newspapers to get a better idea of just how bad the winter is over there right now. It will be eye opening.
Global warming could, I am informed, actually cause Europe and North America to experience another Ice Age.
If the amount of fresh water coming into the North Atlantic screws up the GULF STREAM then that might happen.
This is sort of why I am inclined to think we'd be better all describing what is happening as GLOBAL WEIRDING.
Because in complex interactive systems changes can have dramatic and somewhat unexpected (read counter intuitive) outcomes.
As to the charge that scientists world-wide are collectively "cooking the books"?
Well I'm dubious of that charge.
I don't discount the possibility that scientific consensus might have arrived at an incorrect conclusion, of course.
Science does do that since understanding is a constantly moving target.