[Azure]

From the link..

The time series shows the combined global land and marine surface temperature record from 1850 to 2005. The year 2005 was equal second warmest on record, exceeded by 1998. This time series is being compiled jointly by the Climatic Research Unit and the UK Met. Office Hadley Centre. The record is being continually up-dated and improved (see Brohan et al., 2006). This paper includes a new and more thorough assessment of errors, recognizing that these differ on annual and decadal timescales. Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activities are most likely the underlying cause of warming in the 20th century.

Doesn't that say that the earth cooled off a bit since 1998....since 1998 was the warmest year all around...and 2005, came only second to that?

Analyses of overall temperature trends in the low to mid-troposphere and near the surface since 1958 are in good agreement, with a warming of about 0.1°C per decade. Since the beginning of the satellite record (1979), however, low to mid-troposphere temperatures have warmed in both satellite and weather balloon records at a global rate of only 0.04 and 0.03°C/decade respectively. This is about 0.12°C/decade less than the rate of temperature increase near the surface since 1979. About half of this difference in warming rate is very likely to be due to the combination of differences in spatial coverage and the real physical affects of volcanoes and ENSO (Santer et al., 2000), see also Chapter 12. The remaining difference remains unexplained, but is likely to be real. In the stratosphere, both satellites and weather balloons continue to show substantial cooling. The faster rate of recession of tropical mountain glaciers in the last twenty years than might have been expected from the MSU and radiosonde records remains unexplained, though some glaciers may still be responding to the warming indicated by radiosondes that occurred around 1976 to 1981.

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/048.htm