I do recall the El Nino, and I presume that there is a La Nino right now. But the El Nino was cooler than three previous El Ninos, while the current La Nina is the coolest since the one following the mega-Nino.
The result is that even if we swing immediately into another El Nino of the scale of the Nov., 2006 El Nino, the 1-year, 2-year, 3-year, 5-year and 10-year trend lines will all be trending down. To prevent the first significant downward trending in the 10-year trend line, sea temperatures will have to swing to record-breaking warmth in just a couple months.
For nearly 30 years, the 10-year trend line has been very constant slope. The present downturn will not break it out below the bottom of the range of variations from that slope, because 2000-2004 saw it trend slightly above that slope. But it shoots to hell the expectation that the 2000-2004 trend represented some sort of acceleration.
Lastly, I’d acknowledge that land temperature anomalies have deviated above sea temperature anomalies. But I’d also point out that sea temperature shifts from the trend lines anticipate land temperature shifts, and last month, land temperatures began to drop sharply. This month, there are record lows being set from Patagonia to Colorado.
Check with me on this next January (when the NOAA and GISS annual summaries come out).