Yahoo! Spike that climate change football! The mainstream media has spent the past few days doing a victory dance in the endzone because of the announcement that 2014 was the hottest year on record based on instrument observations that the earth's temperature might have increased by a factor of two-hundreths of a degree centrigrade with a margin of error of a tenth of a degree centigrade....meaning that a decrease in temperature was also well within the margin of error. However, that fact did not diminish the triumphal certitude of the temperature increase "fact" by many MSM outets such as the New York Times as chronicled by Newsbusters' Clay Waters or General Electric Vox which flat out declared, It's official: 2014 was the hottest year ever recorded.
Actually, a much more accurate Vox title would be, "It's official: 62% chance 2014 not the hottest year ever recorded." Why? Because the NASA scientists who were cited in the reports now claim they are only 38% sure which is another way of saying they were probably wrong. The U.K. Daily Mail tossed the cold water upon the numerous MSM happy dances about 2014 being the hottest year on record with this sobering reality check report. However, before we go to the brutal facts undercutting the premature MSM celebrations, let us take a final look at CBS This Morning eagerly reporting the 62% probability that they are wrong as an absolute fact, Jack:
Oops! It turns out there is only a 38% chance that this latest global warming (later change to "climate change" when the preceding didn't materialize) "fact" is true which means probably wrong. Here is the sad truth for the MSM global warming triumphalists as reported by the Daily Mail:
The Nasa climate scientists who claimed 2014 set a new record for global warmth last night admitted they were only 38 per cent sure this was true.
In a press release on Friday, Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) claimed its analysis of world temperatures showed ‘2014 was the warmest year on record’.
The claim made headlines around the world, but yesterday it emerged that GISS’s analysis – based on readings from more than 3,000 measuring stations worldwide – is subject to a margin of error. Nasa admits this means it is far from certain that 2014 set a record at all.
Yet the Nasa press release failed to mention this, as well as the fact that the alleged ‘record’ amounted to an increase over 2010, the previous ‘warmest year’, of just two-hundredths of a degree – or 0.02C. The margin of error is said by scientists to be approximately 0.1C – several times as much.
WAAAAH! I want my global warming delusions back!
If it makes you feel better, one of the NASA scientists is trying to ease your pain:
As a result, GISS’s director Gavin Schmidt has now admitted Nasa thinks the likelihood that 2014 was the warmest year since 1880 is just 38 per cent. However, when asked by this newspaper whether he regretted that the news release did not mention this, he did not respond.
Exit question: What is the probability that all those MSM outlets that reported as a flat out fact that 2014 as the hottest year on record will soon cite the fact that they were probably 62% wrong according to the NASA scientists? 38%? Nil? None?
