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Was 2024 really the hottest year ever? And how do we know?
If you haven’t heard that 2024 was the “hottest year ever” or some such claim, I’m jealous as well as puzzled. It’s has been bleated by the herd of independent media minds incessantly. But if you have heard it, you may be puzzled by something most journalists apparently didn’t ask, let alone answer: How do they know?
It all sounds very scienterrifical, of course. We are told, for instance by the Canadian Press, that “major weather monitoring agencies confirmed 2024 as the hottest year in global history”. Which is utter bunk.
Not even the most frantic climate alarmist denies that it was considerably warmer than it is today for almost the whole 4.5 billion years of global history. The only exceptions are a few “ice ages” believed to have occurred nearly 3 billion years ago, just over two billion, an on-and-off series from 715 to 547 million years ago, one 450 to 420 million years ago, one 360 to 289 million years ago, and then the Pleistocene that began just under three million years ago.
To get technical, if an “ice age” only requires significant ice at one pole, we’ve been in one for 34 million years. But the “Late Cenozoic Ice Age” started at the Eocene-Oligocene Boundary, a secondary extinction event, when temperatures were still around 22 to 24°C rather than today’s 15°C. Though if you’re wondering how precisely we know the temperature 34 million years ago, stay with me while I first insist that calling 2024 “the hottest year in global history” is a mistake on the order of saying water is H3O that, like a clock striking 13, should call into question all that went before and all that comes after.
But when it comes to climate, nobody’s checking even the basics.
Instead, this story was passed on uncritically by MSN. As was another Canadian Press story, by a different journalist, that “Earth recorded its hottest year ever in 2024”. He could have Googled “Hadean”, if he had Google on his computer and the faintest sense of Earth’s geological history. In which case he’d have confirmed that the surface temperature was somewhere around 2,000°C. But he didn’t.
Other outlets were marginally less ridiculous, using terms like “Hottest year on record”. Which is also badly wrong, since the “record” either includes proxy data, in which case the whole mess is on record, or just modern thermometer data, or satellite data, in which case it’s about half a century. Or, which is where the story really starts, a mix of unreliable readings, interpolations, computer simulations and inventions.

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NASA also says “on record”, as in “2024 was the warmest year on record.” And again it made it sound scienterrifical, saying “Our experts work with @NOAA scientists to track Earth’s average temperature, relying on millions of measurements worldwide. They found this year was hotter than any since at least 1880, the result of human activities” But why 1880? Incredibly, they say “Global temperatures in 2024 were 2.30 degrees Fahrenheit (1.28 degrees Celsius) above the agency’s 20th-century baseline (1951-1980), which tops the record set in 2023…. ‘Once again, the temperature record has been shattered — 2024 was the hottest year since record keeping began in 1880,’ said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.”
You see the problem? Well, for starters, what’s “since record keeping began in 1880”? We have daily records for central England back to 1772 and monthly from 1659. Various American and Canadian locations have readings from the fairly early 19th century. So NASA is just making up crucial claims about data. But while this particular one is a problem, it’s not “the problem”.
The problem is that 1.28°C. Or, also in that NASA article, “NASA scientists further estimate Earth in 2024 was about 2.65 degrees Fahrenheit (1.47 degrees Celsius) warmer than the mid-19th century average (1850-1900).” And if you’re nitpicking, you might well ask where they got the mid-19th century average (1850-1900) if “record keeping began in 1880”. What filled in 1850 to 1879? Here be dragons?
No, really. Because again you could be intimidated by “millions of measurements worldwide”. But only if you thought (a) they’d been making them long enough to do historical comparisons and (b) they actually told you how hot the planet is today. Neither is true and neither is really credible.
As everyone forgets every time they look it up, the total surface area of our planet is about 509.6 million square kilometers or 197 million square miles. And of that, 71% is water and thus obviously 29% land. There will be a quiz, in which you will be asked: If NOAA and NASA actually took “millions of measurements” every day, how many would they take per square kilometer?
Correct. Not even one, unless “millions” means “over 509.6 million”. And one per square kilometre wouldn’t be much in the way of resolution. Oh dear.
Suppose you hired some NOAA/NASA boffins to tell you the temperature of your living room to two decimal places. Not only would they need incredibly sensitive gear, carefully calibrated, but they’d have to take millions of measurements just in that room to catch variations because there’s a draft, a furnace duct runs under one corner, the cat had been on the couch, the rug has a pile and so forth. It defies credulity, and insults intelligence, to claim they know how hot the Earth’s surface was to one decimal place on any day in 2024, let alone to two.
They couldn’t know if they took millions of measurements a day, let alone a year. Even a billion measurements an hour, each lasting a second, would amount to one every half square kilometer which is not exactly impressive coverage given how much the temperature can vary within 10 feet, depending on whether there’s a tree or a rock nearby.
If that measurement somehow accurate sampled an entire square meter, they’d still only be getting 1/500,000th of the surface. And only be 24 seconds out of the 86,400 in a day, so 1/3,600th. So you’re nailing 1/1,800,000,000 of it. Splendid. Pass me the decimal places.
Oh, well. Pretend it’s all fine. We know it was exactly 1.47°C, or 1.46 (NASA v NOAA) above the “pre-industrial average (from 1850-1900)”. And don’t get me started on believing anything else from people who think 1900 was “pre-industrial”. Instead get me started on “Hang on, even if you know it all for 2024, how do you know the temperature in 1873 to two decimal places?” Because if you don’t, any claim to know the difference to two decimal places would fail Grade 9 math.
Were there steampunk satellites with optical radar? No. Digital thermometers? No. Mercury ones? Well… no. They did exist, and in a few places on Earth were being recorded fairly systematically, though without precautions we supposedly take today with respect to calibration, siting, time of day, etc., except when we measure them on an RAF tarmac right after three fighter planes land and say “Hottest temperature ever in Britain”. (That would be Coningsby in July 2022 and I am not making it up.) But outside the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Western Europe, British India and Japan, there’s practically nothing even in the late 19th century. In the mid-19th century, even less. As late as the 1930s, very little.
Nobody has any real idea how hot it was in the Congo in 1884, let alone the South China Sea. Or in 1934. They just make it up. And they make up temperatures they know must have been cooler than today because it’s the hottest year ever, QED. (Including “adjusting” American readings from the 1930s down, because the raw data shows that the hottest decade was in the 1930s, in the most complete historical records anywhere.) And when they compare the numbers they invented for the past with those they interpolated for 2024, they get what they told the computer to say, QED.
There are other problems. Including that much of the measuring is by satellites which, of course, do not lower thermometers on ropes. They interpret incoming radiation using complex algorithms that supposedly specify how hot it was six feet above the ground and many miles from the satellite. As NASA itself says, “Satellites don’t directly measure temperature or the surface where people live. Instead, they measure the brightness of Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists then use computer models to convert this brightness data into temperature information.”
To two decimal places? Reliably? I think not. Not even if they literally scanned every square millimetre of the Earth’s surface, land and sea, which of course they don’t. Especially since that statement from NASA is part of its explanation that “Ground thermometers are considered more accurate than satellite measurements when it comes to tracking temperature, here’s why”. Mind you a surprising amount of what passes for thermometer readings comes from stations that no longer exist, which somewhat reduces the accuracy of the data and the credibility of the people who rely on them.
So scientists know their data isn’t remotely as accurate as they claim. Yet they let journalists who wouldn’t know the Hadean from the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum from a tiger’s tail blare again and again that scientists say records shattered.
As for the record being “shattered”, Zeke Hausfather said 2023 was “1.48C above preindustrial levels” so it was smashed by -0.01°. And as the Duke of Wellington said, if you’ll believe that, you’ll believe anything.
Believe this claim instead. We don’t know how hot 2024 was, or how hot 1924 was. And anyone who says we do, to two decimal places, is a rogue, a fool or both.
Forward this to your friends!
John Robson is the Executive Director of the Climate Discussion Nexus, a documentary filmmaker, a columnist with the National Post, the Epoch Times and Loonie Politics. He is an Adjunct Professor at Augustine College and holds a PhD in American history from the University of Texas at Austin.
Image credit: Bigstock
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Julian Cheslow commented 2025-01-28 23:25:48 +1100I will just point out climate change is making extreme weather conditions in both directions more common. As for the argument about countries outside the West being harmed, I do feel those countries and the average folk in them should benefit financially far more from any use of there resources, along with controlling how much of it is extracted and at what place. I similarly think making them take the brunt of waste disposal is wrong, and agree a decrease in consumerism would be helpful.
A concrete example I’m trying to follow in my life isn’t changing phone every year. I also would support regulation forcing corporations to make longer lasting products so there is less to recycle/dump in the first place). I think this combined with a slower pace of resource extraction for green energy where countries outside the West benefit more in the process is possible. -
mrscracker commented 2025-01-28 21:53:46 +1100I live in the Deepest part of the Southern US. We have alligators here. Last week I was snowed in for 3 days and one morning the temperature was 1 degree above zero Fahrenheit. Praise God the power stayed on or we would have had people freezing to death. I’d gladly have taken a little global warmth last week.
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Kate Spooner commented 2025-01-28 17:32:11 +1100The “err on the side of caution” argument might make some sense if the efforts to change the weather/reduce co2 were harmless, but they’re not. Apart from keeping many nations outside the West in poverty by not letting them harvest cheap and effective fossil fuel energy, the West also relies on them to mine rare earths for high tech devices and dispose of our recycling. We leave our own forests in tact while importing wood from SE Asia. We in the West get to use [often] inferior products like “efficient” appliances and resource-intense “green energy”. We should be curbing our wasteful consumerism and encourage resourcefulness, for sure. But the climate models run hot – the worst predictions for co2 levels (should they manifest) are entirely manageable by humanity.
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Emberson Fedders commented 2025-01-23 13:01:47 +1100Of course, John Robson has no training in climate science, meteorology, oceanography or palaeoclimatology so I’m not sure why his opinion counts for anything.
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Julian Cheslow commented 2025-01-22 07:06:21 +1100I think scientists are likely measuring everything they can. And even though Exxon denied any links, scientists working for them predicted it (https://www.npr.org/2023/01/12/1148376084/exxon-climate-predictions-were-accurate-decades-ago-still-it-sowed-doubt). At this point unless if you can categorically deny climate change happening, I think facing it head on is the best way to go.
I think how that is done can be up for debate(from what I looked up Germany has been reluctant to use. Unclear power, and I do think that maybe could be a stopgap measure at least while renewables grow in scale). But I think it is also important to point out if extreme weather events become more and more common it will become harder to have a stable economy.
Also we don’t have as much control over what countries do. But I think it is better to be a leader in this rather then just mining/using more coal because other countries are doing so. -
Christopher Szabo commented 2025-01-22 02:03:56 +1100I’ve no idea if it’s woke or not, but I do think we need to pull back and avoid the climate panic which has gripped Germany and to a lesser extend, the UK. Nothing wrong with erring on the side of caution, but even better to have an understanding of what controls climate, such as:
1. The Sun.
2. The ‘wobble’ of the earth.
3. Geology, including undersea currents.
4. Oceans.
5. The atmosphere.
The studies only look at the atmospheric material, but what about the rest?
Why I think this way is it makes no sense to destroy an economy – see Germany – while India and China carry on with oil and coal.
Do you? -
Julian Cheslow commented 2025-01-22 01:56:11 +1100Maybe this is too woke of me, but personally if there is one thing I think it would be good to err on the side of caution when it comes to readings on it is the planet we all live on and what the next generation will have to deal with. Also regarding the 1930’s, it was the hottest in the U.S but not globally.
On a global scale it has been consistently getting hotter. This article I found explains it in more detail https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wfla.com/weather/climate-classroom/does-1930s-record-heat-undermine-the-science-of-man-made-climate-change/amp/ -
mrscracker commented 2025-01-22 00:32:09 +1100I guess we’ll see how 2025 plays out. There are snowplows currently heading to New Orleans and a blizzard warning issued for the US Gulf Coast.
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Christopher Szabo commented 2025-01-21 20:11:47 +1100It is all a very complicated thing, and people like myself who are familiar with historical date (only going back 3,000 years) know it’s been both hotter and colder, dryer and wetter before, than now. Great article.
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Christopher Szabo followed this page 2025-01-21 20:10:33 +1100
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