Y2K Bug Caused Dramatic Overstatement of US Climate Change

Because of a Y2K bug, the recent US temperature rise has been quite overstated. This is significant news because American weather stations are considered the most reliable. For example, thousands of Soviet weather stations (in cold areas) simply stopped functioning when the Soviet Union did.

It turns out that 5 of the 10 warmest years in America were prior to World War II, which is why Global Cooling was all the rage in the 1970's:

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events.

The effect of the correction on global temperatures is minor (some 1-2% less warming than originally thought), but the effect on the U.S. global warming propaganda machine could be huge.