I suspect that some meteorologists are going to get some questions about a propaganda piece in Forbes stating that 2015 was not the hottest year on record. Trust me it was. NASA, The UK Met Office, and NOAA all do their own calculations and they say it was. Not only that, but their methods have been published in multiple papers, in the top journals of science.

Forbes, instead of reporting this, decided to give space to someone who knows nothing about climate physics to make the same old claims that have long been proven beyond doubt to be wrong. Instead he’s a senior person with a right-wing libertarian “think-tank” called the Heartland Institute, who are known for just this kind of silliness. He has NO background in science, but he played one in Forbes.

Are there differences between the satellite temperatures, and the surface data/ glacier mass balance/ ocean heat content, data (that all shows strong warming? Yes, the satellites data is by far the least reliable because it has to be adjusted considerably for multiple reasons. A good summary of them is here.

This is a perfect example of how not to get accurate science. If Forbes did this with financial information, they’d soon be out of business. So, Mr Taylor, if you think you are right, publish it in a peer-reviewed journal. Don’t get your hopes up, because your claims have already been shown to be wrong. Plus, you only showed one piece of the data, the cherry picked version that most supports your ridiculous claim. That’s a big scientific no-no, and many would say it’s just plain dishonest. They don’t care though, because they are only working to manufacture doubt. An expert in the subject of satellite temperatures is a friend of mine. You can hear what Dr. Ben Santer has to say here in this excellent explanation of the real facts from Bud ward, and Peter Sinclair, at Yale Climate Connections:



or even better yet in this film. It is based on a film by another friend Dr. Naomi Oreskes at Harvard. I moderated a talk she made at the AMS Annual Meeting last week. Her book is a must read.

Watch, and you will understand…

Oh and probably the best indicator of how the planet is warming is to look at the oceans, since 90% of the excess heat is going there. That data is in the graph below. Come on Forbes, publish the truth of the story…



As the water warms and the glaciers melt the sea level increases- here’s the latest data showing that.



Now you know what that Forbes piece really was: Propaganda that was a waste of your time to read.