January 22, 2014

Ya gotta laugh:  Those significant hundredths of one degree

I reproduce below a current news report derived from NOAA and GISS.  You will see that continuing warming is proclaimed with no hint that the data might be troublesome to Warmism.  It is classical warming propaganda much as we hear every year.

I have been naughty, however.  I spent about 2 minutes on a Google search to find out what the actual figures were.  Here is a quote from NOAA:

"The year 2013 ties with 2003 as the fourth warmest year globally since records began in 1880. The annual global combined land and ocean surface temperature was 0.62°C (1.12°F) above the 20th century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F). This marks the 37th consecutive year (since 1976) that the yearly global temperature was above average. Currently, the warmest year on record is 2010, which was 0.66°C (1.19°F) above average."

 Do you see what they are doing?  The differences in temperature that they rely on for a judgment that something was warmest are in hundredths of a degree!  They treat unbelievably tiny differences in temperature that exist only as a statistical artifact as if they told us something! For instance they contrast the 2013 anomaly of .62C with 2010, which is .66C.  The difference is only 4 hundredths of one degree Celsius!  

Is there any point at which they would concede that a difference is too small to be taken seriously?  Thousandths of one degree?  Millionths of one degree?   Medieval theologians used to debate how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.  Theology is alive and well among Warmists!

America's two top scientific agencies have released separate reports on last year's climate, confirming the global warming trend is continuing.

The American space agency, NASA, releases a climate report each year - alongside a separate report from its sister agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The two agencies collect their data separately and their reports show slightly different results. But the trend is clear.  At least nine of the warmest years on record have happened since 2000.

According to NOAA, 2013 was the fourth warmest year for the planet since records began in 1880.

Ocean temperatures were half a degree Celsius above the 20th century average.

NASA says carbon dioxide is at its highest level in the atmosphere in 800,000 years, having risen from 285 parts per million in 1880 to 400 parts per million last year.

Unless current trends change, the world should expect each of the coming decades to be warmer than the last, NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt says.

He describes the warming of the past few decades as "unusual," and urges people not to judge whether climate change is happening or not based on random weather events like cold snaps.

"The long-term trends in climate are extremely robust," he said.

"People have a very short memory when it comes to their own experience of weather and climate, and the only way that we can have a long-term assessment of what is going on is by looking at the data."

Last year also marked the 37th year in a row with higher than average global temperatures.

SOURCE




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