Global Warming Prediction

On cricket-blog.com, I like to make predictions before a game. Usually I get it completely wrong but it's just fun to go on the record then see how close you get. I've been somewhat preoccupied with global warming lately and have developed a theory so I'm going on the record with the following prediction: the world will experience record high temperatures in 2011.

I've been mixing it with global warming skeptics lately and one thing they bring up is how temperature has flattened over the past few years. I know the subsiding of El Nino had an effect but yesterday I wondered whether the 11 year solar cycle might have something to do with it. So I compared solar irradiance with temperature and was intrigued to note that right now we're in the middle of a "trough". Eg - solar output cycles up and down every 11 years and right now, it's as low as it gets.

You can see this in temperature trends over the last 30 years. Whenever solar output hits a peak, the temperature rise is steepest (apart from the El Nino anomaly in 1998). Similarly when solar output is low, the temperature flattens or even falls. This means that over the next 5 years, solar output will steadily increase hitting a maximum in 2011. Plus NASA predict the 2011 peak will be a biggie! So I expect that, barring a big El Nino or huge volcanic eruption, temperature rise will gradually increase and 2011 will be a particularly nasty year.

Note - I don't claim my theory as proof in any way. I haven't done any climate modelling or statistical research - all I did was line up the two graphs in photoshop, copy and past a few bits and add a few extra pretty colours. However, I do hope that I, the IPCC, the Royal Academies of Science from 19 different countries and NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies are all wrong about global warming and that the world somehow starts cooling all on its own.