Shocking! AP admits its story saying 2014 was the hottest year on record needed clarification! AP couldnt bring itself to use the word correction, but thats what this story really is. But dont get your hopes too high for real integrity on climate science at AP. The lead paragraph reads: In a story Jan. 16, The Associated Press reported that the odds that nine of the 10 hottest years have occurred since 2000 are about 650 million to one. These calculations, as the story noted, treated as equal the possibility of any given year in the records being one of the hottest. The story should have included the fact that substantial warming in the years just prior to this century COULD [emphasis added] make it more likely that the years since were warmer, because high temperatures tend to persist. No, dear AP, not could but would. Theres no doubt about that. Indeed, the scientific consensus about that--and AP undoubtedly admires scientific consensus--would be essentially 100%, if anybody sought to measure it, which no one will because its so obvious. The reality is that saying the warm years leading up to 2014 left it equally likely with any other year to be the hottest (or the coolest) is equivalent to saying that you have an equal probability of weighing 6 pounds 5 ounces at age 40 as at birth. Something between the two ages makes the former overwhelmingly improbable.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 00:50:21 +0000