Of course, at the end of the day, it matters little whether 2014 was the hottest during…um, yeah, a weak Holocene warm period,which had been preceded by a big cool period, and a strong warm period. Why? Because we should expect warming during a warm period. The argument is over causation. Anyhow, the computer modelers, er, excuse me, climate scientists, made an interesting admission
(UK Daily Mail) The Nasa climate scientists who claimed 2014 set a new record for global warmth last night admitted they were only 38 per cent sure this was true.
In a press release on Friday, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) claimed its analysis of world temperatures showed ‘2014 was the warmest year on record’.
The claim made headlines around the world, but yesterday it emerged that GISS’s analysis – based on readings from more than 3,000 measuring stations worldwide – is subject to a margin of error. Nasa admits this means it is far from certain that 2014 set a record at all.
Yet the Nasa press release failed to mention this, as well as the fact that the alleged ‘record’ amounted to an increase over 2010, the previous ‘warmest year’, of just two-hundredths of a degree – or 0.02C. The margin of error is said by scientists to be approximately 0.1C – several times as much.
Seriously, even if it was, does a hundredth of a degree C make a difference?
Of course, it helps the narrative when the data is changed on a constant basis.
