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 analysis is based on readings from more than 3,000 measuring stations worldwide.
Apparently, it beat out the 2010 record by 0.02°C.
Really.
Really? 0.02°C? (That’s 0.036°F).
The margin of error acknowledged by GSS researchers is five times that value (0.1°C, 0.18°F).
Gavin Schmidt, Director of GISS, released the graphic below on Twitter.
According to NASA, then, there is only a 38% probability that 2014 was the warmest. Yet, in the media, it’s presented as proven fact.
Given that NASA says there is a 38% probability it was the warmest, there is a 62% probability that it wasn’t.
I didn’t see that on the evening news or in any of the headlines that proclaimed 2014 the warmest ever.
Global temperatures for all of the years in the table fall within the 0.1°C margin of error.
In other words, the variation has been insignificant.
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Good point!
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