An official US Government science committee has tweeted an article suggesting that global temperatures were in a "plunge" - despite scientific consensus saying the opposite - which elicited a derisive response from Bernie Sanders.

“Where'd you get your PhD? Trump University?” the 75-year-old Vermont Senator, who was defeated by Hillary Clinton in his bid to become the Democrat presidential candidate, retorted, retweeting the article to his 3.21 million followers.

The House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology shared the story, published by right-wing news site Breitbart, on Thursday, commenting: "Global Temperatures Plunge. Icy Silence from Climate Alarmists".

The article in question begins: “Global land temperatures have plummeted by one degree Celsius since the middle of this year – the biggest and steepest fall on record”, citing figures lifted from an article by The Daily Mail, which does not contextualise the data.

Temperatures are now dropping rapidly because it is nearly winter in the Northern Hemisphere, which has more land mass than the Southern Hemisphere. Land changes temperature quicker than water, so winter in the Northern Hemisphere is always the coolest point in the seasonal climate cycle.

The crux of the Breitbart article is that all changes in temperature can be attributed to the natural global weather patterns El Niño – which drove up temperatures in 2015, until the middle of this year – and La Niña which is kicking in now, lowering global temperatures.

Because of El Niño and La Niña, 2017 has long been expected to be somewhat cooler than 2016. Scientists studying climate change are well aware of the existence of cyclical weather patterns, and take these into account when drawing conclusions from data..

Researchers have said recently the full impact of global warming has actually been underestimated in the past and we may already be beyond the “point of no return”.

Dr Thomas Crowther, the author of a new study on climate change, told The Independent, that the sceptical stance on climate change of Donald Trump and his supporters was “catastrophic for humanity”.

“It’s fair to say we have passed the point of no return on global warming and we can’t reverse the effects, but certainly we can dampen them,” said the biodiversity expert.

“Climate change may be considerably more rapid than we thought it was.”

Breitbart go on to state that “the news has been greeted with an eerie silence by the world's alarmist community,” a term used by climate science doubters to describe climate scientists and the reporters who cover their work, but provide no evidence to corroborate this claim.

It is unclear who is responsible for the committee's tweet, but the committee chair, Republican Lamar Smith, is a climate science doubter, according to Business Insider.

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“We've been getting a lot of calls about this today,” Beth Larson, a policy assistant at the House Science Committee, told the financial news site. “We're feeling pretty overwhelmed.”

People on social media expressed anger at the tweet, with one user commenting: "@housescience you are an embarrassment. Science *means* something. The scientific process & peer review mean something. Shame on you."