It's official. Where 2006 was the warmest year since records began, the Met Office is now predicting that 2007 will be even hotter. Already across the country lambs are frolicking, daffs are swaying, and butterflies are fluttering, whilst on the other side of the Atlantic ice rinks in the Big Apple have been closed as New Yorkers bask in 22C heat.

In America, the unseasonal temperatures have been blamed, by some weather experts, on El Niño, the natural warming of surface water in the tropical eastern Pacific, which occurs every three to 10 years and changes winds and rainfall patterns. But could this natural phenomenon be reaching further afield and causing spring to have sprung early here?

It's possible, David Parker, of the Met Office's Hadley's Centre for Climate Change told the Guardian. "El Niño may have contributed to there being more south-westerly winds [bringing mild weather] at this stage of the winter", he admits, "but El Niño has a tendency to make cold snaps more likely in the second half of the winter." So there we have it, if it gets colder again then perhaps global warming isn't responsible for our premature winter thaw-out, but if it doesn't? "One warm British winter does not necessarily herald global climate change, but it is probably not a good sign," explains Dr David Viner of the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit, who argues that what we are experiencing fits the pattern of global warming. "If it carries on like this, we could experience a year without a winter for the first time."

Interested in beating global warming? Check out Stranger's interview with James Lovelock from issue 3 here, to find out his radical views on how to tackle it.