Global ocean temperatures drop to coldest in 6 1/2 years

Alarmist theories take another hit....

The temperature of the ocean has cooled 0.2 degrees C in the past few of years, and is now only 0.1 degrees C warmer than it was throughout much of 1944. This data set had been showing a general warming trend since the late 1970s, (as well as a warming trend from the 1910s through the mid 1940s) with the warmest time being recorded in the El Nino year of 1998.

Despite temperatures peaking in 1998, it's been reasonable to describe the temperature trend as continuing, since 1998 at the time was a flukishly hot spell. Since 1998, the "normal" trend line approached what had been flukishly warm.

The reversal to cooler temperatures is not yet long or strong enough to discredit global warming completely... by a long shot. However, global warming alarmists had been warning that global warming had dramatically accelerated in the past couple decades; although ocean temperatures had risen a mere degree over the last century, the alarmists had warned of an increasing rate of warming, or even an increasing rate of an increasing rate of warming, suggesting the next century could see temperatures increase by several degrees.