2014 - Warmest On Record Update

A week and a half ago I posted this.

It said that the Japanese Meteorological Agency released some preliminary findings showing that 2014 was the warmest on record.  The AP expected that NASA and NOAA would release their findings within a week.

From NASA two days ago:

The year 2014 ranks as Earth’s warmest since 1880, according to two separate analyses by NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists.

The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000. This trend continues a long-term warming of the planet, according to an analysis of surface temperature measurements by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

In an independent analysis of the raw data, also released Friday, NOAA scientists also found 2014 to be the warmest on record.

The word to pay attention to is "trend."  NASA's Gavin Schmidt reiterates:

“This is the latest in a series of warm years, in a series of warm decades. While the ranking of individual years can be affected by chaotic weather patterns, the long-term trends are attributable to drivers of climate change that right now are dominated by human emissions of greenhouse gases,” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt.

Here's a chart from GISS to illustrate:

The jagged black line connects the black squares that represent individual years.  The curvy red line is the 5 year running average.  Note how the last square is only slightly higher than the black square on the 2010 line.  This will be important when you start to read the climate deniers try to deny the science.

Like this one from the (Scaife funded) Cato institute:

Annual temperatures are calculated by averaging up monthly readings, so the last data point that we have is October. The National Climatic Data Center, a part of the Department of Commerce, estimates that global average temperature was a record high of 58.46°F. The previous record was 58.45°.

See that?  How can it be that much of a deal if the current record "high" is only .01°F higher than the last record "high"?

We are arguing over the significance of hundredths of a degree, they say.

Of course, they're misleading you.  The point is not how much hotter this individual year is over the last individual year (or much hotter the hottest record year is over the last hottest record year) but the overall trend.  And the overall trend, since at least 1910, according to GISS is upward.

No matter what they say, it's still getting warmer.

Can't wait to see how the braintrust that is the Tribune-Review editorial board is going to spin this.