Check out this Inconvenient Truth:

I knew I could count on you to find this report, Larry!  Bill Evans read excerpts this morning on Channel7 News.

I know, that Nobel Peace Prize winning former Vice President of the United States cum laude graduate of Harvard Univeristy and attendee of the United Nations Climate Change Conference and that idiot Academy Award winning director from Brown University don't know anything!

This blog post by Michael Asher, a clear skeptic of Global Warming with and by no means a neutral party, is far more informed and intelligent.

Looks like you showed Al Gore, good job.

Climate models are not based on just one year's worth of new data, or even a couple of decades worth.  Most climatologists won't even suggest that a given trend is occurring, until there is a minimum of 30 years of continuous data, showing an overall movement in a particular direction.  There are many factors which one must take into consideration, which could account for this year's anomalous deviation from the upward trend in global temperatures. 

The record snow cover can begin to give us some clues.  Frozen precipitation is not dependent on surface level temperatures, although to remain frozen, the temperature must be at or below the melting temperature of ice.  To have an excess of precipitation, there must be more water vapor in the air, than is the average.  The precipitation itself, is stored in clouds/cloud cover.  Now, here's two of those clues: with a higher than average of cloud cover, producing a higher than average amount of precipitation, less energy from the sun now reaches the earth, as it is reflected by the cloud cover, back into space.  With less energy input, there is a resulting drop in temperature.  Now one can say, that the excess cloud cover acts as an insulating blanket, preventing infra-red (heat) radiation from being emitted by the earth, into space.  That is absolutely true.  Well, here's the big "but" in that statement: It's that more energy from the sun is being blocked by the cloud cover, than is prevented from escaping.  Here's clue # 2: The energy "loss" indicated by the drop in temperature, had to go somewhere.  The law of conservation of energy prohibits the energy from being "lost", only converted from one form to another, or transferred elsewhere.  In this case, the heat which is stored in the planet's vast oceans, provides the energy to cause a higher than usual amount of water to be evaporated.  This warms the air directly above the water, which then rises and carries the water vapor with it.  With height and cooler air, the water vapor condenses, and forms the clouds/cloud cover.  With condensation, the heat energy which produced the conversion of water as a liquid into a gas, in the first place, is then released and radiated back into space.  There's the energy transference.   

 A phenomenon called "Solar Dimming", which is unrelated to solar activity itself, and is an earthly event caused by particulates high in the atmosphere, may have in addition, played a small role.

The big player here though, is the Sun, itself.  The Sun is currently in what is referred to as the Solar Minimum.  This a "quiet time" for our star, and unlike the more chaotic Solar Maximum which spews out more energy than usual, it now is emitting less. 

So, with less energy being emitted from the Sun, and because of excess cloud cover lessening the amount of energy reaching the surface, and with excess precipitation resulting in energy loss from the oceans; our planet is a little cooler this year.  It may be this way for a few years to come.  That is a good thing, because it offsets some the heat gain of the past 50 or 60 years, and may perhaps slow the upward global temperature progression.

Errors with climate models, variations between different models, different people offering differing interpretations of the information presented by those models, and skeptics pointing fingers, will not change or have any effect on what has happened, or what will happen.  Only nature can do that.  We humans and our activity, are said to be large contributors to the global warming model.  Well, we are a part of nature.  Let's wait and see what nature does, compile the data, and see how it all pans out.

Finally, We should continue our steps towards lessening pollution, and greenhouse gasses, unabated.  it's a good thing overall.

Charlie. 

I agree in lessening proven harmful pollution, but not at the expence of ruining any US industry.  The process will be shipped to China and the global pollution will be worse.  Rather than, "Stop Global Warming", my new t-shirts say: "Stop Tectonic Plates" "Stop Bovine Flagulance" and "Stamp Out Sun Spots"

Nuf said,

L