Statisician Steve McIntyre, the guy who famously exposed the global warming hockey stick fraud, has done the world another service by pointing out an error in NASA climate expert James Hansen's temperature adjustment algorithms that had the effect of causing a false jump in official temperatures.

The corrected numbers shoot down 1998 as the hottest year on record -- it's now second behind...wait for it...1934.

The remaining Top 10 list:

1. 1934
2. 1998
3. 1921
4. 2006
5. 1931
6. 1999
7. 1953
8. 1990
9. 1938
10. 1939

Overall the hottest decade on record was: the 1930s. Blame Henry Ford for introducing the gas-guzzling SUV in 1931.

In the grand scheme of things, this really isn't that big a deal. Yes, the global warming alarmists lose their laugh line about 1998 being the hottest year on record, but little things like facts won't stop the scaremongering.

What's really troubling about this story is the fact that McIntyre had to do the statistical equivalent of reverse-engineering NASA's numbers. The human-caused global warming proponents funded by taxpayer dollars won't release their "black box."

Well, my estimate of the impact on the US temperature series was about 0.18-0.19 deg C., a little bit more than Ruedy’s 0.15 deg C. My estimate added a small negative offset going into 2000 to the positive offset of about 0.15-0.16 after 2000 - I suspect that Ruedy is not counting both parts, thereby slightly minimizing the impact. However, I think that you’ll agree that my estimate of the impact of the impact was pretty good, given that I don’t have access to their particular black box.

Needless to say, they were totally unresponsive to my request for source code. They shouldn’t be surprised if they get an FOI request. I’ll post some more after I chance to cross-check their reply.

This should be news, but don't expect to see much information in the mainstream media about it.

If he's lucky, Warren Meyer over at Coyote Blog might get his letter published in Newsweek, but don't hold your breath.