Twenty-fifteen is the make-or-break year for climate alarmism, with a crucial battle planned for Paris in November.  So we can expect regular bursts of global warming propaganda.

The year started on cue with a breathless announcement from the U.S. National Climate Data Center: “2014 was Earth's warmest year on record” (their records start in 1880).

The Little Ice Age ended in about 1880.  Therefore, it is no surprise that global temperatures have generally risen since then.  And it reveals nothing about the cause of the warming.

Moreover, the announcement hides more than it reveals.

Firstly, the alleged new peak temperature is just 0.04° C higher than 2010.  Whom are they kidding?  No weather recording station can measure to that accuracy.  Once the likely error bars are added to the averaged data, the story changes to “recent global temperatures remain flat.”

Secondly, what does “average” mean?  Almost every place on Earth has a different average temperature, and the averages range from 34° C to -58° C, a range of 92° C.  With very large daily and seasonal variations, an unevenly scattered and variable set of temperature recording stations, and frequent “adjustments” to the raw figures, their calculated “global average” is probably a manipulated and meaningless number.

Trends are more important than spot values.  Satellite data and proxies such as ice core data give more reliable long-term “average” temperature trends.  Both records say that 2014 is not unusually high.

Moreover, information on global temperature trends go back far beyond 1880 – ice core data goes back 20,000 years.  These show that there were several periods in the last 10,000 years with global temperatures significantly above that for 2014.

So the “warmest year on record” is just another warmist temperature lie.