Eight years of cooling means little. But who knew of it? Jo Nova on a recent cooling trend: I'm not keen on short term trends at all, they have a habit of flicking in and out of statistical significance with each month's new data, or even switching from cooling to warming. But for what it's worth, and only time will tell, perhaps the world entered the downswing of the PDO cycle in temperatures circa 2005. If the world was entering a gently cooling phase, this is what it would look like.. The cooling for the last eight years is statistically significant in 4 of the 5 major air temperature datasets. One, UAH, shows a small (statistically insignificant) rise since 2005. And here's the political point: how many of the policy makers, the media, or the public are even aware of the current trend? Approximately no one. I'll bet even most skeptics didn't know it. Thanks to reader Rocky.