Scanning through UKww reminded me of this.

This forecast was issued on Dec 30th 2008, while ENSO was still in a
La Nina phase.

"2009 is expected to be one of the top-five warmest years on record,
despite continued cooling of huge areas of the tropical Pacific Ocean,
a phenomenon known as La Niña. According to climate scientists at the
Met Office and the University of East Anglia the global temperature is
forecast to be more than 0.4 °C above the long-term average. This
would make 2009 warmer than the year just gone and the warmest since
2005."

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporat...r20081230.html

Jan-June 2009 was 5th warmest Jan-June in the NOAA record despite the
La Nina's influence. The forecast is bang on so far and with the La
Nina now over and ENSO now showing El Nino conditions, I'd bet on this
forecast being correct at the year's end. So far, this is a big "well
done" to the Hadley centre forecasters.

What's the odds on 2009 actually now beating the record years of 1998
and 2005? Global temperatures in the last 6 months of this year could
be very interesting, especially if those recent UAH temps are repeated
in the July surface figures (UAH and RSS were much lower than the 3
surface measures in June and the satellite figures usually are). And
remember - we are in a year of low solar output and solar cycle 24
just does not want to get going.

A La Nina + a solar minimum and the first 6 months of the year in the
top 5 warmest since 1880. Now that has to make the sceptics question
their beliefs that GW has ended, surely. No snapshot there. The last
time any month was below the NOAA average was in the 1970s, as I said
on a different thread, the first 6 months of this year are just a
continuation of a long global warming sequence.