You may have heard NASA is making some minor revisions to its U.S. temperature records. Conservatives have immediately seized on the change using the same methodology they always use to refute scientific data on global warming or air pollution or cigarettes causing cancer or anything else that might cost their sponsors money -- take minor flaws in the data to say all the science is wrong and we should keep going about our business:"We have proof of man-made global warming," [Rush] Limbaugh said on his show last Thursday. "The man-made global warming is inside NASA. The man-made global warming is in the scientific community with false data."RealClimate.org points out the inconvenient truths you won't hear on the radio today:
More importantly for climate purposes, the longer term US averages have not changed rank. 2002-2006 (at 0.66 -ŚC) is still warmer than 1930-1934 (0.63 -ŚC - the largest value in the early part of the century) (though both are below 1998-2002 at 0.79 -ŚC).And tiny changes in U.S. temperature data have virtually no impact on global temperature data:
NASA's Goddard Center lists 2005 as the world's warmest year, followed by 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2006.