oh Don if only you would turn your skills to curing cancer you'd have it licked in a week

Cobber - you haven't made any point refuting Don, just a sneer. The fact that 2014 might be the warmest year, right or not, is almost besides the point. The models say it should be much warmer than it is, as Don points out..so what conclusion should we draw?

"Will 2014 be the hottest year ever?"

Of course not! Who would believe such rot?

It was much hotter for 75% of the past 500 million years - there was no ice at either pole for all that time!

And life thrived.

Therefore, clearly warmer is better for life.

Therefore not catastrophe, just the pro's and cons of change - and that goes on all the time naturally anyway.

The climate changes abruptly. Always has, always will.

Exactly curmudgeon, we should not be listening on what the data is telling us, we should be concentrating on arguing about the inadequacy of our models. That's where the real game is isn't it?

That is just the point Bugsy, we should be listening to the real data, not some model, designed to give the UN what it wants.

Only actual measurements, nor homogenised, or bastardised with monotonous regularity, as the WMO & other UN fellow travellers are.

Try the satellite record, records that are the least adulterated of any that the gravy train crew can get their hands on.

Where?
The people up there in Alaska watching their permanently frozen permafrost melting and their ever present summer sea ice disappearing; might very well conclude that it was?

Perhaps we could use the old people index and measure the raw numbers dying in ever longer heatwaves; to conclude, hey it's been hotter for some, but particularly those who can't afford air conditioners!

Or the occasional swimmer, commenting that in recent years the oceans have become much warmer than normal, particularly along Tasmania's east coast, where giant kelp seems to be disappearing, given consistently warmer ocean temperatures!

Our planet follows an elliptical orbit around the sun, which waxes and wanes; so there are bound to be endless natural temperature variations!
Meaning, using single year/decade variations to monitor trend line changes, is just the most unscientific way of trying to reach a logical conclusion.

And a problem further compounded by patently disingenuous mendacious cherry picking the raw data, like for example, just measuring very recent changes in ambient air temperatures, and not measuring comparable changes in (the lungs of the planet) ocean temperatures and acidification as well!

Or the increase in energy use due to the extended/increased use of air conditioners, by those who can still afford such luxuries!

When reason and logic are replaced by dogma and ideology, the science can and does become fundamentally flawed, if not downright dishonest Don!?
Rhrosty.