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2014 Was Earth's Warmest Year On Record
An anonymous reader writes: A lengthy report compiled by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration using work from hundreds of scientists across 58 countries has found that 2014 was the hottest year on record. "The warmth was widespread across land areas. Europe experienced its warmest year on record, with more than 20 countries exceeding their previous records. Africa had above-average temperatures across most of the continent throughout 2014, Australia saw its third warmest year on record, Mexico had its warmest year on record, and Argentina and Uruguay each had their second warmest year on record. Eastern North America was the only major region to experience below-average annual temperatures." They've also published a page showing highlights of the major findings. Greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise, the global sea level reached a record high, and average sea surface temperatures reached a record high.
Cue rabid mud-slinging between fossil-fuel addicted Morlocks and nuclear-power fearing Eloi.
I weep for the future.
How could our Gods allow such a thing? This doesn't mesh with my personal worldview, and therefore did not happen!
Personally, I'm disappointed in the weather. I like the heat, and I don't like cold and snow. But I live in New England. I've been hoping since I can't relocate my family to warmer climate, that the warm climate would come to me. But it's certainly taking its sweet time getting hot around here! The rest of the globe is getting warm while I'm still freezing in New England. I'm disappointed.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
There was no winter in Germany in 2014. Only a prolonged autumn. And this summer sets new heat records.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Until they provide the raw unedited unnormalized data this can't be believed.
Your wish is granted. The article discussed is a 267 page report with pages of data and extensive references explaining where the numbers come from.
Which, of course, you haven't read and have no intention of reading. It's just easy to say "show me the data" when you actually don't have the slightest interest in it.
And what makes you think that isn't just EXACTLY what they do?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=raw+clima...
Very first result: http://www.realclimate.org/ind...
Any uniformed suggestions?
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Actually, it does NOT balance out. That is the problem.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Ah yes. Newsbusters understands neither science nor probability, and misrepresented the statements of scientists in order to imply that the scientists are most likely wrong...news at 11:30.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
So what’s up with this 38 percent figure, and does it really undermine the idea that 2014 was the hottest year on record?
The figure comes from slide 5 of the PowerPoint presentation mentioned above, where NASA scientists noted that there was a 38 percent chance that 2014 was the hottest year, but only a 23 percent chance that the honor goes to the next contender, 2010, and a 17 percent chance that it goes to 2005.
The same slide shows that NOAA’s scientists were even more confident in the 2014 record, ranking it as having a 48 percent probability, compared with only an 18 percent chance for 2010 and a 13 percent chance for 2005.
According to a NASA spokesman, the PowerPoint containing this slide went online at the same time that the 2014 temperature record itself was announced. So it may not have been as prominent as the press releases from the agencies, but it was available.
The slide was also discussed in the press briefing when the news of the new record was released. In the briefing, NOAA’s Thomas Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center, noted:
Certainly there are uncertainties in putting all this together, all these datasets. But after considering the uncertainties, we have calculated the probability that 2014, versus other years that were relatively warm, were actually the warmest year on record. And the way you can interpret these data tables is, for the NOAA data, 2014 is two and a half times more likely than the second warmest year on record, 2010, to actually be the warmest on record, after consideration of all the data uncertainties that we take into account. And for the NASA data, that number is on the order of about one and a half times more likely than the second warmest year on their records, which again, is 2010. So clearly, 2014 in both our records were the warmest, and there’s a fair bit of confidence that that is indeed the case, even considering data uncertainties.
Karl further noted that the Japan Meteorological Agency had also found 2014 to be the hottest year on record.
In light of all of this, is there anything wrong with NASA and NOAA declaring 2014 a record? To the contrary, it’s hard to see how there could be.
If anything, in criticizing NASA, and holding forth the 38 percent figure as though it somehow undermines the analysis, climate “skeptics” are simply exaggerating scientific uncertainty — which always exists and can never be fully dispelled — and letting it undermine what we actually know.
A better scientific way of assessing evidence, in contrast, is to take uncertainty into account — which NASA and NOAA clearly did — but then go with the conclusion that is supported by the weight of existing evidence. And from Karl’s words above, you can clearly see that the weight of the evidence, supported by both NASA’s and NOAA’s analyses, shows that the most reasonable conclusion is that 2014 is the hottest year on record.
Indeed, NASA’s Gavin Schmidt, who heads up the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (which did the temperature analysis from its records, dubbed “GISTEMP”) and also participated in the press briefing above, has written a blog post to explain all of this further. Here’s what he notes:
In both analyses, the values for 2014 are the warmest, but are statistically close to that of 2010 and 2005. In NOAA analysis, 2014 is a record by about 0.04C, while the difference in the GISTEMP record was 0.0
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Part of your problem is that you think someone repeating peer reviewed science is on equal footing with someone who spouts gibberish.
If Skeptical Science were publishing and creating its own scientific research.....the way WUWT does....then you would have a point.
But since they simply repeat what actual scientists say, tracing everything back to verifiable scientific observations and papers, they stand on pretty firm ground.
Unlike WUWT, and unlike you.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I'm not sure what your point is. The way science works is that scientists are constantly improving their work. You would be more worried if they didn't upgrade their data analysis methods from time to time.
There's a vast difference between improving your analysis and dropping data you don't like.
There's also a vast difference between ignorant and being willfully ignorant. There is a full detailed scientific explanation of WHY the change was made. It has nothing to do with "Oh we don't like it".
Grow up.
~X~