No, 2014 WASN'T the "warmest year in history"

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/01/29/global-temperature-what-does-that-even-mean/YBuZQuXqAB5dJYznrRyVKI/story.html

Unless you’ve spent the last few weeks in solitary meditation on a remote island, you couldn’t miss the wave of media stories breathlessly proclaiming that 2014 was the hottest year in recorded history. As usual, the coverage was laced with alarm about the menace posed by climate change, and with disapproval of skeptics who decline to join in the general panic.

Among those seizing on the news to make a political point was President Obama, who used his State of the Union address to voice disdain for those who don’t share his view. “I’ve heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they’re not scientists,” he scoffed. “Well, I’m not a scientist, either. But. . . I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA, and NOAA, and at our major universities.”

Well, I’m also not a scientist. But I do know that what NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center actually reported was rather less categorical than what the news accounts — or the White House — might lead you to believe. As both government agencies made clear in their briefing materials, the likelihood that 2014 was the planet’s warmest year is far from a slam-dunk. Indeed, the probability that 2014 set a record is not 99 percent or 95 percent, but less than 50 percent. NOAA’s number-crunchers put the probability at 48 percent; NASA’s analysis came in at 38 percent. The agencies rationalize their attention-getting headline on the grounds that the probabilities were even lower for other candidates for the label of “hottest year in history....”

You don’t have to be a scientist to realize that climate is complicated and hard to get right. Climate models have so far been unable to accurately predict changes in global temperature. Experts didn’t foresee the global cooling that began in the 1940s and didn’t anticipate the warming cycle that started in the late 1970s. Climate science is still in its infancy, and it would be folly to treat any single explanation for changes in global temperatures as impervious to challenge or skepticism.

Discuss

Of course global warming is real.  The ice in my coke is melting faster today than it did six months ago.  Therefore, it must be warmer today

Six months ago was the winter month of February.  Now is the summer month of August.

Ice melts faster in the summer due to manmade global warming!

I think you are on to something!

Global Warming = Big $ for "research" = Raising taxes = Spending tax money= Buying votes = Electing pro global warming candidates = Big $ for research.....................................................................

If they have their way, you are going to be taxed for your "carbon footprint" and prosecuted for "crimes against the environment"

You're correct. The number is 700,000.

JamieDelarosa wrote:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/01/29/global-temperature-what-does-that-even-That's the number of years you have to travel back in time to find the levels of CO 2 we currently have in our atmosphere.

mean/YBuZQuXqAB5dJYznrRyVKI/story.html

Unless you’ve spent the last few weeks in solitary meditation on a remote island, you couldn’t miss the wave of media stories breathlessly proclaiming that 2014 was the hottest year in recorded history. As usual, the coverage was laced with alarm about the menace posed by climate change, and with disapproval of skeptics who decline to join in the general panic.

Among those seizing on the news to make a political point was President Obama, who used his State of the Union address to voice disdain for those who don’t share his view. “I’ve heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they’re not scientists,” he scoffed. “Well, I’m not a scientist, either. But. . . I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA, and NOAA, and at our major universities.”

Well, I’m also not a scientist. But I do know that what NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center actually reported was rather less categorical than what the news accounts — or the White House — might lead you to believe. As both government agencies made clear in their briefing materials, the likelihood that 2014 was the planet’s warmest year is far from a slam-dunk. Indeed, the probability that 2014 set a record is not 99 percent or 95 percent, but less than 50 percent. NOAA’s number-crunchers put the probability at 48 percent; NASA’s analysis came in at 38 percent. The agencies rationalize their attention-getting headline on the grounds that the probabilities were even lower for other candidates for the label of “hottest year in history....”

You don’t have to be a scientist to realize that climate is complicated and hard to get right. Climate models have so far been unable to accurately predict changes in global temperature. Experts didn’t foresee the global cooling that began in the 1940s and didn’t anticipate the warming cycle that started in the late 1970s. Climate science is still in its infancy, and it would be folly to treat any single explanation for changes in global temperatures as impervious to challenge or skepticism.

Discuss

Let's bann research. Save the money to buy fossile fuel! That's the way to go! Man made climate change is only an illusion created by logig. It's easy to measure how co2 and other ghg's affect the climate, also the quantity's of those gasses in athmosphere is easy enough to measure. It's obvious that humans have caused the co2 levels to rise. Annoying, because it's false..? And there's the people on top of that.. They idiots vote corrupt anti-coal persons to make desitions that could be done by angel-like oil people who would never take money from poor tax payers. I'm so pissed!

It is not really research, but tax contributions to their friends.  Liberals see tax revenue as other people's money.

Can't say anything about the polical side of things there as i know very little how it goes there. Thankfully I get to vote from a variety of party's. In Finland the sereach that gets (public) funding aims to deliver usefull stuff. Applications coming as an outcome of cutting down greenhouse gass emissions are something to celebrate. I enjoy the saved $'s with full heart, everyone should try it! Try to look the bigger picture, where the routes of anti-coal and pro-coal take us. One of them is going to bring great things, other one is trying to more or less keep things as they are.

Juhomorko, your point is well taken.  If the gov't "proved" that global warming (cooling) exists and coal, fossil fuel, etc is the culprit, then why do additional research at tax payers expense?  Once you prove something, you should have to re-prove it unless there are flaws in your data or conclusion.

From a post in 'The Corner' i.e. nationalreview.com by Eliana Johnson:

Allen asked Cruz if he is concerned by a Boston Globe story published on Saturday that suggests Republicans will pay a price in 2016 for their skepticism about climate change. Cruz’s response? “Not remotely.” 

He went on to recall the 1970s panic over global cooling and a coming ice age. “The solution they proposed was massive government control of the economy, the energy sector, and our lives. Then the data disproved it,” he said. ”Then it became global warming. Interestingly enough, the solution was identical: massive government control over the economy, the energy sector, and our lives. Then the data didn’t support it, so they entered theory number three, climate change. Now, to any power-greedy politician, this is the perfect theory, it can never, ever, ever, be disproven, if it gets hotter, if it gets colder, if it gets wetter, if it gets drier.”

The climate issue is in the news once again with the administration set to unveil sweeping new regulations on carbon emissions from power plants. President Obama earlier in the day released a video that warns of “hotter summers, rising sea levels, and extreme weather events.”  

Asked whether the president is exaggerating, Cruz said, ”You know, there’s a different word than exaggerating.” 

LOL.  Silly, it's NOT Global Warming any more, it's climate change.  GW is so yesterday!  Just wait until a new temerature trend is observed. They'll be predicting Ice Ages again.

And did you know that 'The Media' & some 'Scientists' have been going back and forth on this for ~100 years!  Alternating every 30 years ro so with Ice Age & Burnt to a Crisp  alarmism.  Everyone knows about the ice age preditions of the 70's, but there was GW alarmism in the 1930s.  Before that (I can't remember when maybe the Teens) there was Ice age Alarmism.  Look it up!

Meanwhile, the head of the Democrat Party is given two opportunities to explain the differences between a Democrat and a Socialist and ducks the question both times. (from official NBC News 'Meet the Press' transcipts).

CHUCK TODD:

Now, you were on with one of our panelists this week, you were on with Chris Matthews, and he asked you a question about Bernie Sanders. Let me play you the clip and then get you to respond on the other side.

CHRIS MATTHEWS:

What is the difference between the Democrat and a socialist? I used to think there was a big difference, but what do you think it is?

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ:

The difference between--

CHRIS MATTHEWS:

--between a Democrat like Hillary Clinton and a socialist like Bernie Sanders.

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ:

The more important point is what's the difference between being a Democrat and being a Republican.

CHRIS MATTHEWS:

But what's the big difference between a Democrat and a socialist. You're chairman of the Democrat party. Tell me the difference between you and a socialist.

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ:

The relevant debate that we'll be having over the course of this campaign is what's the difference between a Democrat and a Republican--

CHRIS MATTHEWS:

I think there's a big difference. I think there's--

CHUCK TODD:

Given that Bernie Sanders is an unabashed socialist, and believes in social Democratic governments, likes the ones in Europe, what is the difference? Can you explain the difference?

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ:

You know, Chuck, it's always fun to be interviewed by Chris Matthews. And I know that he enjoys that banter. The important distinction that I think we're going to be discussing, and I'm confident we'll be discussing in this campaign is the difference between Democrats and Republicans….

Socialism is great until you run out of other people's money

There's only handfuĺl of socialist nations in the world and i thinķ one of them has loaned a considerable sum of money to one huge non-socialist nation.. I could be wrong.. ;-)

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

(Attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler)

For the first part of the quotation, we have the socialistic policies of Greece as an example.

For the last part of the quotation, we have Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

I'm no expert but the left wing politics isn't allergic to money, strong economics etc. It's actually much to do with the great and famous donation culture excisting for the most parts in the USA. And that culture is something europeans should learn.

the US left wing politicians are addicted to grabbing money from the productive members of society.  In the US, there is a large donation based (mostly conservatives) that give a larger % of their disposal income to charities that are inline with their desires.

If the expectation value (i.e., sum of values measured over all probabilities) of a measured event is maximal over a certain region, it is a fair - though not necessarily precise - characterization to call the measured value maximal over that region. As a mathematician, I might quibble about it. As an engineer, I would say you are just splitting hairs.