Earth had its warmest year on record in 2014, said NOAA and NASA at a joint press conference today. According to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, global surface temperatures in 2014 were 1.24°F (0.69°C) above the 20th century average, highest among all years in the 1880-2014 record, easily breaking the previous records of 2005 and 2010 by 0.07°F (0.04°C). Using independent measurement techniques but mostly the same set of surface stations, NASA also rated 2014 as the warmest year on record, as did the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). The other widely-cited global temperature measurement, from the UK Met Office, has not yet been released for 2014. Because there are variations in how each group handles the Arctic and other data-sparse areas, there are slight differences in the "top ten" lists of warmest years produced by each group. However, 2014 is the first year since 2005 that has topped the temperature charts for both NASA and NOAA.
How could this be when Antarctic Ice coverage was the greatest ever this past year. I have to question their data and how accurate was the data from the late 19th and early 20th century. The other thing I have to argue is the wording that use to make it look like the earth has never been this warm before.
All I am saying let's enjoy the "warmth", colder winters affect the US economy more than you would think. Last year's colder than average winter across the eastern US killed sales. I remember our Co going into a panic mode because our school sales were so down because of the number of days that schools were closed across many States in the NE US. It also brought down Restaurant traffic big time, people were not going out to eat because of the bad road conditions.
Wunderground or Dr Masters more specifically has been posting about global warming or climate change for a long time. It's got to the point where I don't even go to the site anymore as the conversation inevitably turns to a climate change debate. I have no problem with the discussion but when it is constantly discussed over and over by the same people it gets stale quickly.
The problem that I have is that we know that the earth is billions of years old and all the sudden because we have this little global "heat wave" they blame it really quick on human activity. The earth has had periods of warmer weather than we have been experiencing in the past 120 plus years. IMO, there are bigger factors that dictate the climate on earth from century to century just like the weather from day to day.