NASA GISS leading dataset shows 2010 temperature record

With all 2010 data collected and analysed, research groups are bombarding reports about climate record breaking year 2010.

And as science writers we’re having a bit of a hard time keeping up. But in our ongoing coverage there is one dataset we definitely cannot ignore: NASA GISS’s – because it has the best balanced representation of the Earth’s surface, land masses and oceans included, and superior monitoring of the Arctic regions compared to the other established temperature datasets.

According to NASA the year 2010 was on average just 0.010 degrees Celsius hotter than 2005, tying these years as number one hottest years. The years 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007 and 2009 are statistically tied for third warmest year.

This means according to NASA 2005 and 2010 were significantly hotter than 1998 – the strong El Niño year that many news sources still quote as shared hottest. [Comparing the NASA measurements it is actually 2009 that ranks third, and 2007 that ranks fourth. The years 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2006 are almost equally hot, with average measured temperatures differing less than 0.005 degrees Celsius.]