Blood, sweat and tears in Cancún

According to the WMO, “the global combined sea surface and land surface air temperature for 2010 (January-October) is currently estimated at 0.55°C ± 0.11°C1 (0.99°F ± 0.20°F) above the 1961-1990 annual average of 14.00°C/57.2°F. At present, 2010’s nominal value is the highest on record, just ahead of 1998 (January-October anomaly +0.53°C) and 2005 (0.52°C).”

Had the WMO used a different “standard reference period”, such as the 1981-2010 annual average, instead of a 1961-1990 annual average, the global combined sea surface and land surface air temperature anomaly for 2010 (January - October) would have been 49 per cent lower at only +0.28C.

Meanwhile, Britain is having its coldest December in 100 years. Overnight lows on 8th December were -15C in Scotland and -13C in England. The army has been called in to clear away snow, as tearful experts claim the snap is a “once in a lifetime” extreme event in a warming world. (In Warmerland, the answer is always “climate change”, whatever the question.)

The most disappointed warmists, however, could be all the delegates who so earnestly want to put “the CAN in CANCUN!” Like millions of others, they embrace without question the politicised UNFCC’s fanciful storyline that governments actually can manipulate the Earth’s elusive thermostat and control global temperatures. They eagerly accept all the frantic “wake-up calls”, such as the claim Tuvalu, The Maldives, Kiribati, Vanuatu, etc, will have to evacuate “their entire populations because of salt water intrusion and sea level rise”.

At COP-16, sacrificial victims were not laid on a stone slab. They were taken into a room and given long sessions of hand-wringing, mind-bending and heart-rending eco-sentiment about saving the planet. If the tearful Figueres is right, Cancún could well be an “insufficient” but necessary step; but will it get the climate circus to COP-17 and beyond? YouTube - Christiana Figueres meets the trackers at COP16 in Cancun, Mexico.

Stand by for a few more lachrymose moments south of the border, down Yucatan way - with or without Ixchel’s help.