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NASA declares 2007 second-warmest year on record, NOAA says it's fifth-warmest

Posted at 10:37 AM on 17 Jan 2008

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies has declared 2007 the second-warmest year on record, tying with 1998 for the title. 2005 remains the hottest, according to the agency. Researchers said, to no one's surprise, that the greatest warming occurred in the Arctic. "As we predicted last year, 2007 was warmer than 2006, continuing the strong warming trend of the past 30 years that has been confidently attributed to the effect of increasing human-made greenhouse gases," said James Hansen, director of GISS. But in case you're not comfortable with second-warmest, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration came out with its own analysis concluding 2007 was the fifth-warmest year on record.

sources: NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

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Comments: (4 comments)

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Some consensus...

They can't even agree on the temperature.

by jabailo at 9:13 AM on 18 Jan 2008

Confused about hottest years?

Thanks Grist. This piece shows how poor even the best scientists can be at communicating "outside of the peer review process". They should be forbidden.

NASA and NOAA (nor anybody) can say which year was the second warmest, or the fifth warmest planet-wide. Such differing results are only useful to statisticians or mathematicians.

They are reporting a different "ranking" of the top years according to the record as they have calculated it. Read the entire article and you are reminded that the error variance among the top years is sometimes 10X the differences! Good grief!

They can just barely claim that 2007 is "among" the hottest five years of record. Nobody can say that 2007 is the second or fifth "hottest". The data simply doesn't support it.

It's fair and good to report results. It's unwise to avoid using the term "not significant" earlier in the report. And maybe a little dishonest.

by Boyscientist at 9:22 AM on 18 Jan 2008

Top 5 is still top 5...

They can just barely claim that 2007 is "among" the hottest five years of record. Nobody can say that 2007 is the second or fifth "hottest". The data simply doesn't support it.

Shouldn't the fact that it was among the top 5 at all (forget whether it was second, third, or whatnot), be concern enough?

by Tasermons Partner at 9:45 AM on 18 Jan 2008

Manufactured controversy?

Taserman is right

I haven't actually read anything more than the standard press releases, and the media echo-box. If we look deeper we will conclude......

Two major science agencies rank the hottest years. They get slightly different results which are not significant. Nothing changes whatsoever. Two different great big piles of calculations result in a small meaningless difference. Not bad really.

I give 2:1 odds in favor of NOAA. It's true NASA sent men to the moon 20 years ago with computers less sophisticated than our wrist watches, but NOAA got heap more atmospheric scientists, and more "stat" guys.

by Boyscientist at 12:15 PM on 18 Jan 2008

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