WHILE the official figures are not yet in, 2008 is widely tipped to be declared the coolest year of the century.

Whether this is a serious blow to global warming alarmists depends entirely on who you talk to.Anyone looking for a knockout blow in the global warming debate in 2008 were sorely disappointed.

The weather refused to co-operate, offering mixed messages from record cold temperatures across North America to heatwaves across Europe and the Middle East earlier in the year. Even in Australia yesterday there were flurries of snow on the highest peaks of a shivering Tasmania, while the north of the country sweltered in above-average temperatures.

A cool 2008 may not fit in with doomsday scenarios of some of the more extreme alarmists. But nor, meteorologists point out, does it prove the contrary, that global warming is a myth.

In Australia this year, on the most recent figures, the average temperature was 22.18C.

Last year it was 22.48C. In 2006 it was 22.28C, and in 2005 22.99C.

Senior meteorologist with the National Meteorological Centre Rod Dickson said that based on data from January to November, 2008 might be the coolest this century but it was still Australia's 15th warmest year in the past 100 years.

"Since 1990, the Australian annual mean temperature has been warmer than the 1961-1990 average for all but two years, 2008 being one of those years," he said.

In Australia overall, 2008 on the most recent date, was 0.37C higher than for the 30-year average to 1990 of 21.81C.

Worldwide, 2008 was expected to be about 0.31C higher than the 30-year average to 1990, of 14C.

One of Australia's best-known sceptics of man-made global warming, former head of the National Climate Centre William Kininmonth, said the cool year did not fit in with the greenhouse gas theory that suggests the globe should be continuing to warm.

"All the reports from the northern hemisphere of record snows and freezing temperatures would suggest that 2008 will follow the predictions and officially be declared the coolest of the century," he said. "But the only thing we can really deduce is that the warming trend from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s appears to have halted."

Another well-known sceptic, geologist Bob Carter, said critics were jumping on the cold northern hemisphere winter to dismiss global warming, but climate was a long-term phenomenon and there was nothing particularly unusual about present circumstances.

But Don White, of consultancy firm Weatherwatch, said while last year was likely to end up the coolest year this century, this needed to be put into perspective.

"If the same temperatures had occurred in the early 1990s it would have been the warmest ever," he said.

"The year 2008 may have been colder than the previous seven years, but it was still warmer than most years prior to 1993."

Mr White said Melbourne, Hobart and Adelaide had well below average rainfall for the calendar year 2008, with just 449mm in Melbourne, compared with an average annual rainfall of 652mm.

Hobart received 407mm in 2008 compared with an average of 618mm. Sydney was also slightly below average at 1083 mm, compared with an average of 1213mm.

Brisbane, Perth and Darwin were all wetter than normal.