If you actually read the article, it says that there will be a slight dip "by a fraction of a degree" compared with last year due to the effects of La Nina, but the temperature would still be well above the average of the last hundred years.
Until the end of the 1700's and into the 1800's there was a mini ice age, so would not the rise in temperature be normal?
How can know for sure that this is just how it works. We haven't been keeping records long enough to know for sure.