The New York Times wrote this week that 2014 was "the hottest in earth’s recorded history," as did our Global Warming blog. The New York Times later recanted, saying instead "Last year was the hottest on earth since record-keeping began in 1880." Why?

DEPENDS ON WHAT THE DEFINITION OF "WAS" WAS:

Despite the rewrite, they are still wrong; if the word "was" infers that there was more than a 50 percent chance that the claim is true (and in science, wouldn't it be even more?). NOAA/NASA's real numbers (not included in the original report) were this:

The probability of 2014 being the hottest year since 1880 (by 0.02 degrees with a margin of error of 0.1 degrees C) is 38-48 percent. In other words, it's more likely false than true!

SHOULD WE DEMAND A RECOUNT?

That is like saying, "Today's poll shows Candidate One clearly won the election because he beat Candidate Two by 0.6 percent; the margin of error is 3 percent." Sure, Mr. One's voters are going to claim victory, but you can bet Mr. Two's folks are going to demand a recount -- or say people should ignore the poll.

OK, SO WHAT DO I BELIEVE?

I often get asked why I don't believe in global warming, at least that man has recently caused it. I've finally taken the time to list the reasons why here. I welcome any civil comments at the bottom of this article, but you're not going to change my mind on these five topics:

1. INSTRUMENTATION HAS A WARM BIAS:

All these numbers assume that weather instrumentation is, and always has been, accurate to that margin of error, and that's my biggest beef with this data. Satellites can't see surface temperatures perfectly, and (trust me because I've used them for 40 years) it's easy for thermometers on earth to read too high (and this gets worse with urbanization) -- but almost impossible for them to read too cold. You can read more about this warm bias at SurfaceStations.org.

2. THE RATE OF WARMING HAS PLATEAUED:

All of this ignores the fact that the rate of global warming has been steady over the last 18 years.

3. THE RATE HAS OUT FROM UNDER PREDICTIONS:

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The rate of increase of global warming run out from underneath all the Climate Change model predictions, which made some bad assumptions (note the increase in carbon dioxide in the background of that first graph!).

4. WE'RE IGNORING THE BIG CLIMATE CONTROLLERS:

Recent scientific papers have come to plausible conclusions that the Earth's temperature is controlled by the sun, which is not taken into account in climate models. Neither are volcanoes, which have caused the biggest cooldowns in Earth's history. And then there's clouds. In fact if you look at long-term (climate) trends, you'll see we're going through a normal, repeatable decrease in global temps:

WAIT, SHOULDN'T WE REDUCE POLLUTION ANYWAY?

Am I saying we shouldn't curb pollution? Absolutely not. It's not good for the Earth, or those who live here, and we should absolutely cut carbon emissions where we can, but we can't justify it simply by saying that man is warming the world. There's not yet enough data.

THAT'S MY STORY AND I'M STICKING TO IT! AND I'M NOT ALONE...

I've gone on record as being a skeptic of global warming for over 20 years, as have at least four of my coworkers and 400 other scientists, including AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions CIO Mike Smith, Dr. Joe Sobel, Bernie Rayno, and others.

DISCLAIMER: These are my thoughts and may not represent those of AccuWeather, Inc.; you can read our official statement on Climate Change at the bottom of the page here.

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