Surprising Global Warming News!

NASA has just admitted a whopping mistake in its temperature data! 1998 is no longer the warmest year of the past century in the U.S. It falls to #2 with 1934 now being the warmest year. And #3 is now 1921, not 2006. It had been claimed that six of the ten hottest years in U.S. history had occurred since 1995, but now only three of the top ten are from the last ten years (1998, 2006, 1999). And 1998 was a peak year for El Nino, a phenomenon unrelated to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, that also affected 1999 temperature data. The formerly high-ranking years 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2004 fell well down the leader board—behind even 1900!

Four of the top ten are now from the 1930s : 1934, 1931, 1938, 1939. Since 82 percent of the century's increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide occurred after 1940, the warmer temperatures of earlier years can't be explained by higher carbon dioxide levels. So why should we believe all the hype about increased CO2 emissions causing catastrophic warming in the future? Remember, too, that while CO2 was increasing steadily since 1940, the earth's temperature was decreasing from 1940 until 1975—leading to widespread media reports about fears of a new ice age.

Newsbusters reported: “A change in climate history data at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies recently occurred which dramatically alters the debate over global warming. Yet, this transpired with no official announcement from GISS head James Hansen, and went unreported until Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit discovered it Wednesday [Aug. 9]....When this correction was made by Hansen's team at the GISS, shouldn't it have been reported? In fact, it is quite disgraceful that it wasn't, as it suggests that a government agency is actually participating in a fraud against the American people by withholding information crucial to a major policy issue now facing the nation.”

It is worth noting that James Hansen was the man who started the whole flap about global warming when he testified before a Senate committee in June 1988 that he was “99 percent sure” that global warming was already underway. He was not shy about spreading his views on global warming then, but he was now curiously silent when the agency he heads makes a change counter to his beliefs. When asked, Hansen in his defense tried to minimize the issue, saying critics were “making a mountain out of a molehill” and using it “to muddy the debate.” Had the change been in the other direction, indicating warmer temperatures, you can bet he would have trumpeted this to the world. And the media would have gobbled it up and puked it all over the newspapers and the nation's TV screens.