Wouldn’t it be nice if global warming just, you know, just went away? Yes it would, but it will not be through a statistical fudge but through hard work.

You see, a lot of people are beaming with joy that NASA’s US temperature data had a small error in its analysis, so 1998 is now no longer the hottest year on record, but 1934 is. This lead to some seriously flawed claims like global warming is just a statistical farce and those NASA scientists that made the mistake (and fixed it, and thanked the person who reported it) should be fired. In reality, 1998 and 1934 were always very close to each other (statistically indistinguishable) but with 1998 just nosing ahead. When the error was fixed, 1934 nosed ahead, but still statistically indistinguishable. Yippie.

However, the global trend of warming is still there. The past decade is still the warmest on record. CO₂ levels are at extraordinary levels. Global warming is still very much here.

Reading about the story is very amusing, so read it as it unfolded in the following order:

• Kick-off
• Real Climate does a proper debunking
• Deltoid, with graphs and a review of the anti-global warming movement’s reactions
• Bad Astronomy with some proper maths

[tags]global warming, 1934[/tags]