But a report from the Met Office, which has been peer-reviewed by the University of Reading`s Professor Rowan Sutton, suggests the world is warming again.
The Met Office`s Professor Adam Scaife said the Earth`s climate system is at a "turning point", with several global changes occurring at once.
One of the most significant changes is the El Nino phenomenon. Scientists say a major El Nino event is now under way, which is set to peak this winter.
They argue it could be on the scale of an El Nino event in 1998, which helped drive global temperatures to record highs.
The years 2014, 2015 and 2016 are all likely to be at or near record levels, in part due to the influence of El Nino.
Prof Scaife said natural weather variations were just the "icing on the cake", which exacerbate the problem of human activity which puts greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
He said: "We believe we are at an important point in the time series of the Earth`s climate and we`ll look back on this period as an important turning point.
"That`s why we`re emphasising it because we`re seeing so many big changes at once.
"A lot of those things are natural, we`ve had El Ninos when we were cavemen, that`s been going on a long time, and similarly there is evidence for variations in the Atlantic going back 1,000 years through various proxy measures.
"A lot of these things can occur without the influence of human beings.
"However, they are now occurring on top of the influence coming from man`s activity, so when they occur, when an El Nino comes and raises the global temperature, that is the icing on the cake, that is the extra bit that creates a record."
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