By Paul Homewood

h/t AC Osborn

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/13

NOAA claim that 2014 was the hottest year on record, with global temperatures 1.24F above the 20thC average of 57.0F.

In other words, 58.24F.

This is all very strange, because back in 1997, they said global temperatures were 62.45F!

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/1997/13

Now I am quite sure that temperatures have not really dropped by 4 degrees, or else glaciers would by now be advancing over the hill. And I do realise that NOAA and the rest like to talk in anomalies, rather than absolutes.

Nevertheless, if we have got so little idea of what global temperatures are, can we honestly have much confidence in claims of warmest years based on a few hundredths of a degree?

All of this though does raise a much more serious issue. How much of this four degree difference can be explained by ocean temperatures? NOAA did not show the…