John McLean claims that 2011 will be a cool year:

" Taking into account the seven-month time lag it is likely that 2011 will be the coolest year since 1956 or even earlier"

I hardly believe that he is serious or is this his final step into craziness? Perhaps we could offer him a bet?

German skeptics already translated McLeans claims and I asked them to put their mouth where their money is. Hopefully they will accept ;-)

Holy cow, that's batshit insane.

Is it worth doing a blog post point out how incredibly stupid this prediction is?  For the record, the first two months' anomalies were around 0.4°C (GISS), which makes 2011 so far hotter than every year pre-2000 except 1998.

I wouldn't mind doing a blog post on this if people think it would be worthwhile.

Batshit insane alright-- I like that :)  I am pretty sure that, barring a tropical supervolcano, 2011 will be warmer than 2008 (the most recent La Nina year)

Good idea Dana. Gareth Renowden over at Hot Topic had a post on this a week or two back. It demonstrates that skeptics like McLean actually don't have a clue about the big picture, i.e where the frack does he think all that heat accumulated in the last 5 decades, can disappear to?. 

That's how it would look like...

I will offer McLean a bet and I am interested if he accepts (the risk for me to loose is near zero I would assume ;-)). If he declines we could write a blog post to reveal that he don't believe his own words.

Someone here who wants to participate (a 10,000 $ bet sounds great ;-), but that is too much for me alone)?

Is there an actual projection for the next year?

Martin, that graphic is right out of a Roland Emmerich film of reknown...

Neal,

Do you mean from the Met Office or similar agency?  If so, then the answer is yes:

"Although La Niña has stabilised, it is still expected to affect global temperature through the coming year. This effect is small compared to the total accrued global warming to date, but it does mean that 2011 is unlikely to be a record year according to the Met Office prediction based on the three main datasets. Nevertheless an anomaly of 0.44 °C is still likely — with the range very likely to be between 0.28 °C and 0.60 °C. The middle of this range would place 2011 among the top 10 warmest years on the record."

"Holy cow, that's batshit insane."

Lol on that haha

McLean against the Met Office? "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."

Good graphics in my opinion - makes a good laugh.

It proves that visualization is a powerful argument :-)

Who would believe such a graph? Well I know a few, but it dosn't seem very resonable to the sane.

Perhaps this type of graphics could be a new series of graphs - what if the deniers are right type of graphs.

Could be funny, but use carefully.

Corbyn views would provide some interesting graphs.

I like that idea of the what if they were right...

I drafted up a quick blog post.  MartinS, am I right in thinking your plot is of NASA GISS land-ocean temps?

This would be a great example of 'inviting the fool to put his head in the noose'. Invite McLean to make a prediction of what he thinks the anomaly will be for 2011. Publish the invitation. Publish his response or lack thereof. Then wait.

@Oslo:

That's a good idea! We could also check past projections of deniers with reality. For example in 2008 E.G. Beck (yes, the denier with the crazy CO2 reconstruction) projected that CO2 concentration won't increase any more...

Oslo, MartyS, yes spiffy idea!. I suggest playing it straight though, just a dry, analytical post.  

Is it possible to plot in shaded areas for 2 and 3 standev on the chart.  That may add some additional perspective on the batshit factor.  

I'd estimate that on the 1 to 10 "guano scale" this is a 12.

You could call the blog post, "The Day after MacLean"

Oops, I meant to post asking: does he really mean global?

Maybe he just means odd number dated Sundays outside his shack in Arkansas or something. The deniers often do that sort of thing.

Also, any chance you could tart up the graph and make it look less excel-y? I always think it improves the professionalism :)

You asked that question in the other thread (in the blog post forum) I think Mark.  Yes, he mentions global temps specifically in the press release several times.  I already posted, so a bit late to change the graph!