According to the GISS global analysis, 2005 (not 2004) was warmer than 1998. You missed the point (2003) that's mostly covered by the red moving average line. For more on that:
Global Temperature Trends: 2005 Summation
"The highest global surface temperature in more than a century of instrumental data was recorded in the 2005 calendar year in the GISS annual analysis. However, the error bar on the data implies that 2005 is practically in a dead heat with 1998, the warmest previous year."
There is indeed a discrepancy between the 2005 temperature anomaly shown at the link above and the one shown on the graph to which your posting refers (the one in my original composition). Both of these are directly linked from GISS. The temperature anomaly in 2005 is above 0.6 C in the graph posted here, and below 0.6 C in the GISS 2005 temperature summation. I have no idea if this is a plotting error or due to a revision to the data. I have always based my understanding on the 2005 summation, which indicated that 2005 was very slightly warmer than 1998 in the GISS analysis (NOAA had 2005 just below 1998). [Note that the 2005 summation probably hasn't been revised since January 12, 2006. The graph at the top of the article was revised on January 8, 2007. I find that interesting, because it may imply that in the current GISS analysis, 2005 is now warmer than originally reported in the 2005 summation!]
As for 2002: Global Temperature Trends: 2002 Summation
Translation: Anything that embarrassingly contradicts global warming we will just dismiss and chalk it up to being unusual or an anomaly,
I still have yet to see anything that embarrasingly contradicts global warming. Your misconceptions certainly don't.
Back in that time period the United States was pretty much the only country keeping accurate temperature records on a consistent basis(i.e. How many weather stations were there in China, Africa, South America, Antarctica, etc. consistently taking accurate temperature readings in the 1930's)?
I refer you to the Global Historical Climatology Network and this PDF document: Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) quality control of monthly temperature data. Judge for yourself. From the latter document: "Despite the problems encountered with various source data sets and individual time series, evidence was repeatedly seen, in both the digital archive and in old documents such as the 1894 Deutsche Ueberseeische Meteorologische Beobachtungen in Deutsch-Ost-Afrika (Peterson and Griffiths, 1997), that weather observations were generally made very meticulously. There are 4.7 million station months of temperature data in GHCN starting in 1701 and continuing to the present. This embodies the systematic observations of our environment by tens of thousands of individuals over centuries of human history."
Speaking of RealClimate, the discussion in "6 Easy Steps" is actually quite illuminating. Did you know that there are two reasons that the GHCN temperature record is substantially unaffected by the revisions to the GISS data? See the responses to #110 and #112 to see why.
“I still have yet to see anything that embarrasingly contradicts global warming. “
Contradiction? No. Embarrassment? Yes.
The big story here is not the disproof of global warming, but the disproof of that anti-scientific claim from the AGW alarmists that “the science is settled”, which even recently Al Gore repeated. The hell it is.
When even the basic question of the underlying data is in question, most of the studies done up to now should be considered tainted and in need of review and revision.
Arguing global GISS data to ‘prove’ the changes are not significant is a bit of a non sequitor.
The questions are about US data, which is now being revised in a way that dampens some of claimed ramp up in recent temperatures and leaves us with 1934 as the hottest year on record, in the US.
But these revision to US data are a tip of the iceberg that could come:
- US temp records have been considered the ‘cleanest’ of the records globally, and it calls into question reliability of all the data
- there has been way too much secrecy in the algorithms used to make the temp adjustments; the light of day needs to shine on how these records are being constructed; when that happens, surely a lot more than this dataset will be affected
The AGW alarmist camp keeps hand-waving everytime
“There are 4.7 million station months of temperature data in GHCN starting in 1701 and continuing to the present. This embodies the systematic observations of our environment by tens of thousands of individuals over centuries of human history.”
Such a statement in no way refutes the main thing at issue, explained on Coyote blog:
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2007/08/official-us-cli.html
“One of the interesting aspects of these temperature data bases is that they do not just use the raw temperature measurements from each station. Both the NOAA (which maintains the USHCN stations) and the GISS apply many layers of adjustments, which I discussed here. One of the purposes of Watt’s project is to help educate climate scientists that many of the adjustments they make to the data back in the office does not necessarily represent the true condition of the temperature stations. In particular, GISS adjustments imply instrument sitings are in more natural settings than they were in say 1905, an outrageous assumption on its face that is totally in conflict to the condition of the stations in Watt’s data base. Basically, surface temperature measurements have a low signal to noise ratio, and climate scientists have been overly casual about how they try to tease out the signal.”
Unless and until the ‘internals’ of how termperature adjustments are calculated are made public *and* a deep and thorough review of the actual quality of temp. instruments used to construct global means, charts such as “global average temperature” will be of dubious validity.
Is there evidence the global temperature data should be reviewed? Yes, consider this:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/nvst.html
That’s how science has to work. Get the facts right. If even the facts are not settled, the science can hardly be said to be so.