NASA Claims 2000-2009 Warmest Decade Since Records Kept

NASA has released a study claiming that 2000-2009 was the warmest decade since records began being kept in 1880.  This isn’t the same thing as saying it is the warmest decade ever, of course.  And I am skeptical. First, Jim Hansen is a panic monger, and I don’t believe anything he has to say about this subject unless verfied by a more trustworthy source. Second, he claims it is an “average,” meaning, NASA decided on how to compile the statistics.  From the story:

James E. Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said that global temperatures varied because of changes in ocean heating and cooling cycles. “When we average temperature over 5 or 10 years to minimize that variability,” said Dr. Hansen, one of the world’s leading climatologists, “we find global warming is continuing unabated.”

Maybe, but I want independent boots on the ground and eyes on all the data—unfiltered and unrestricted. Third, this seems awfully convenient to rebut the “problems” global warming believers have been having of late. And finally, we have also been told—and not by skeptics—that the last decade there was no “observable increase in global temperatures.” So which is it?

Let’s see what those who are not true believers have to say. When they report in, I’ll put it on SHS.