A number of news reports tried to reengage the climate change debate by reporting on a press release from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies that suggested 2010 tied 2005 for the warmest year on record. The Associated Press reports, “Indeed, the last three months have been particularly cool in the U.S. Southeast, even while worldwide readings were going on to tie 2010 with 2005 for the warmest year on record as climate change continues to affect the atmosphere.”

But the article fails to differentiate between warmest years in the United States and warmest years in the world. As climatologist Anthony Watts points out with regards to the NOAA press release, “There’s no mention of the 2010 ranking for the USA temperature at all, nor any mention of the fact that 2010 was not nearly as warm as 1998, or 1934. I find that more than a little odd for an agency whose mission is to serve the American people with accurate and representative climate data.”

The AP report then goes on to mention more United States-specific data like the fact that “January’s national temperature was the coolest for the United States since 1994. The unusually cool conditions dominated the country east of the Rockies, while there were warmer than normal readings in Washington, Oregon and California.” It would have been better to mention that populated areas such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia have not experienced such warming. The reports of NOAA’s press release should have been more on the lack of evidence we have that manmade emissions are connected to global climate change.