Specialists dispute which year warmest

Various reports produced in the media throughout 2015 suggested that the year might have been the warmest on record – or at least the warmest year since the late-
1800s when humankind first began using what are considered to be reliable measures of temperature.
In June, a report from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies indicated that the average temperature for the first five months of 2015 exceeded those of any other year on record. The NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in the U.S. noted that the temperature of these five months exceeded those of the same five months as measured in 2010, by 0.09 degrees Celsius.
Reports later in the year seemed to confirm that 2015 was indeed the warmest year on record.
In November, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) claimed that the global average surface temperature in 2015 was likely to be the warmest, while also reaching the symbolic milestone of 1 degree Celsius over the pre-
industrial era (pre-1850).
WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud warned that, while feeling the effects of human-induced global warming, 2015 is also “witnessing a powerful El Niño, which is still gaining in strength.”
“This is influencing weather patterns in many parts of the world,” said Jarraud, “and [has] fueled an exceptionally warm October.”
“The overall warming impact of this El Niño is expected to continue into 2016,” he added.
However, Forbes contributor James Taylor lashed out at weather warning reports this week, stating that 2015 was “not even close to the hottest year on record.”
Taylor points to a chart that shows 1998 to have been the warmest year on record. He further alleges that global warming activists and the media are conspiring to present false data.
The discrepancy between the different reports may have less to do with media conspiracy and more to do with variants in what is actually being measured. The data cited by Taylor measured temperatures of the global lower atmosphere, while reports from the WMO specified that they had recorded global average surface temperatures.