Does this make any sense?

Yes, I'm a global warming denier, sometimes denying man-made global warming, and sometimes just denying the whole notion outright. The earth warms, the earth cools, it's a dynamic system that is constantly changing. So what? I saw this article on Drudge today and was mystified by the following paragraph:

"There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Willis says. So the buildup of heat on Earth may be on a brief hiatus. "Global warming doesn't mean every year will be warmer than the last. And it may be that we are in a period of less rapid warming."

Now, I understand that the scientist being quoted is examining data from a brief span of time (five years), but it's clear to me that he accepts the premise that the earth has been warming and is continuing to do so, most likely because of man's activities. Why does this research necessarily have to prove or disprove global warming? If Willis's hypothesis was that evidence for global warming would manifest itself in rising ocean temperatures, he needs to admit that the evidence doesn't support his hypothesis. Of course, it's sometimes just easier to blame your measurement devices for bad or misleading data:

One possibility is that the sea has, in fact, warmed and expanded — and scientists are somehow misinterpreting the data from the diving buoys.

These sensors are part of JPL NASA's Argo array. Hardly high school science fair stuff. It does appear that there were some data errors identified, as this article explains.

Update as of 5/30/07: Recent analyses have revealed that results from some of the ocean float and shipboard sensor data used in this study were incorrect. As a result, the study's conclusion that the oceans cooled between 2003 and 2005 can not be substantiated at this time. The study authors are currently working to correct these data errors and recompute ocean temperature changes.

The NPR article is dated 3/19/08, so can we assume the data has been reevaluated and that the initial results have been validated since the 5/30/07 update?

What I find interesting is that few scientists who hold global warming theory as fact haven't found it necessary to question the validity of all of the temperature and weather stations used to collect and compile the data used in support of their theory. Anthony Watts has compiled some great information about weather stations and the effect their placement can have on their data here.