The claim that 2014 was 'the warmest year ever' is vastly overstated

Ever since Tom Harris, no relation that I know of except that my Dad, Carl, was born in Canada, came out with his 'My Turn' article in late January in the Press entitled; "Not So Fast, NOAA," I've had a lot of phone calls and emails on 'climate change.'

Tom says that "when it comes to 'climate change,' the public's appreciation of 'uncertainty' seems to vanish."

He claims that this is "at least partly due to the 'misinterpretations' of meteorological and climatological data acquired by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as well as from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)."

For example, in last month's NOAA home page it said, "It's official: 2014 was the Earth's WARMEST YEAR EVER."

NASA, not wanting to be left out, stated in their Jan. 16 news release video, "2014 was the hottest year on record."

But, as Tom says, "these pronouncements are 'highly deceptive.'"

NOAA's climate data shows that the record for global heat was "only four one-hundredths of a single degree Celsius warmer than the previous warmest year on Earth, 2010."

In fact, NOAA's temperature statistics show that the seven previous record warm years in 1988, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2010 and 2013 were all within nine one-hundredths of a degree of the supposed 2014 record for warmth.

The same situation applies to NOAA's announcement that, "December of 2014 was the warmest December on record for the globe."

But, the previous record for December warmth, December of 2006, was only one-hundredth of a degree cooler than 2014, and the 2006 record was just one one-hundredth of a degree warmer than the heat record set in 2003 for the Earth.

Dr. Tim Ball, a historical climatologist also, like Tom Harris, from Canada, says, "Typical accuracies of temperature measurements throughout the 20th Century were between one and one-half degree Celsius. Therefore, it makes no sense to claim by NOAA and NASA that 2014 was the warmest year every by a puny one-hundredth of a degree."

Ball went on to add, "There is virtually no reliable data on temperatures for the 70 percent of the Earth's surface, that is comprised of oceans. And, there's practically no data for another 20 percent of the land areas on the planet that are deserts, mountains, grasslands and tropical rain forests."

This climatologist would like to add that when one substitutes URBAN 'HEAT ISLANDS' of asphalt and concrete for cooler grassy rural areas, one is ALWAYS SURE to find RECORD WARMTH.

NORTH IDAHO WEATHER REVIEW AND LONG-RANGE OUTLOOKS

We may still see some snow showers yet this warm winter of 2014-15 in late February and early to mid March. El Nino is 'dead' and a cooler La Nada sea-surface temperature event is developing in the waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean. This is why I'm leaving my snow tires on for at least another three weeks.

It's certainly been a winter of 'WIDE EXTREMES' nationwide. The eastern half of the country has seen record cold all the way south into Florida. Freezing temperatures nipped some citrus and vegetable crops in the Sunshine State early Friday. Boston is approaching its snowiest winter season in recorded history. At the 'opposite' side of the temperature scale, there were readings in the warm 80s in parts of the Desert Southwest, including Southern California, last week. The parching drought in central and southern California is "worse than ever," but I see some showers arriving at the end of February and early March. Pray for mountain snows for irrigation this summer.

Cliff Harris is a climatologist who writes a weekly column for The Press. His opinions are his own. Email sfharris@roadrunner.com