This is just a brief press release, tentatively ranking 2009 global temperatures in a tie with several other years as the 3rd warmest in their temperature analysis, which extends only back to 1891. http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/news/press_20091215.pdf As noted above, the differences in the temperature anomalies among top-ranked years typically are not statistically significant.
Certainly THIS thread can't possibly turn into a shouting match and a never-ending discussion on the differences between climate and weather resulting in the inevitable banfest. op2:
