Temperature Graph Misrepresented To Deny Climate Change

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 6, 2025, 11:36 PM

temperature graph misrepresented to deny climate change

FILE - A man wades into the ocean at sunset on June 22, 2021, in Newport Beach, Calif. Part of a graph from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that displays global temperatures over the last eight years is being taken out of context to drive the misleading claim that the Earth... (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File) CLAIM: A graph from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration displaying land and ocean temperatures over the last eight years shows that the Earth has been cooling, not warming, proving that global warming from... AP’S ASSESSMENT: False.

A small portion of the graph showing only the period between 2015 and 2022 has been taken out of context to make the incorrect claim. The larger graph from which it was isolated displays temperature trends over more than 140 years, showing a dramatic upward trend. Experts say El Niño and La Niña cycles have impacted the last eight years, but more reliable climate data must be measured over periods of decades. THE FACTS: Social media users are misrepresenting a small portion of a graph from NOAA to support the erroneous claim that global temperatures are falling rather than rising, meaning global warming is not real. “Last 8 years... global cooling...

at a rate of 0.11°C/decade.... despite 450+ billion tons of emissions worth 14% of total manmade CO2 in the atmosphere. CO2 warming is a hoax,” wrote one Twitter user in a post that received nearly 10,000 shares and more than 13 million views. CLAIM: A graph from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration displaying land and ocean temperatures over the last eight years shows that the Earth has been cooling, not warming, proving that global warming from... THE FACTS: A small portion of the graph showing only the period from 2015 and 2022 has been taken out of context to make the incorrect claim. The larger graph from which it was isolated displays temperature trends over more than 140 years, showing a dramatic upward trend.

Social media users misrepresented the graph to support the erroneous claim that global temperatures are falling rather than rising, meaning global warming is “a hoax.” The graph being shared online appears to show a... “The 8-year temperature time series shows the annual global mean surface temperatures for the most recent eight years,” said Jeffrey Hicke, a professor at the University of Idaho’s Department of Earth and Spatial Sciences. “It is accurate as shown, but is misleading.” That’s because while the last eight years trended slightly downward, this small period of time was greatly impacted by natural El Niño and La Niña cycles, experts explained. Zooming in on just this period does not discredit the overall upward trend of global temperatures over the past century. The full NOAA graph, which displays temperature trends from 1880 to 2022, shows a dramatic rise in global average temperatures.

Hicke said the graph in its full context is “much more appropriate for assessing the influence of human activities on climate.” An ocean temperature decrease between 2013-2022 proves global warming is a hoax. Misleading. The claim is based on cherry-picked data and evidence shows global warming is real. AAP FACTCHECK - A small decrease in ocean temperatures over eight years does not disprove global warming, despite claims being made online. A graph based on data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that shows global ocean temperature data from 2014 to 2022 is being used as evidence to undermine the science of...

While the graph indicates a 0.02C decrease over the period, long-term data shows a clear warming trend. "What this graph proves is that even IF mankind is influencing the temperature, it is insignificant compared to the natural forces that are apparent when you look back 400,000 years. But the temperature change over the last 150 years could mostly be due to coming out of the Little Ice Age that lasted from 1200 to 1850," claims a November 10, 2024 Facebook post,... It includes a chart seemingly showing ice ages and corresponding temperature anomalies over hundreds of thousands of years that was originally published by the CO2 Coalition -- a group lobbying against mandated reductions to... Similar claims have spread on social media via other climate-skeptic accounts, including repeatedly-debunked former Fox News commentator Steve Milloy. Ice ages are caused partly by changes in Sun exposure due to natural variations (archived here) in the Earth's orbit, combined with the influence of planet-warming greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The most recent glacial period occurred between about 120,000 and 11,500 years ago (archived here). Enter a term in the search box to find its definition. Use the controls in the far right panel to increase or decrease the number of terms automatically displayed (or to completely turn that feature off). This is a re-post from the Climate Brink Last September the Washington Post published an article about a new paper in Science by Emily Judd and colleagues. The WaPo article was detailed and nuanced, but led with the figure below, adapted from the paper:

The internet, being less prone to detail and nuance, ran with the figure, with climate skeptics calling it their “new favorite graph” and reposting it everywhere, claiming that it shows the insignificance of recent... "How can anyone see this chart and seriously still be brainwashed into believing that we are at the end of days? It's very basic stuff," reads a message accompanying the graphic on Twitter that received 11 million views. It has also been shared on Facebook and in numerous posts in German. The title of the graph says it shows temperature variations – the "temperature anomaly" – from "7643 BC to present", though the years along the x-axis run to 1885. It features several labels including one that reads: "Most recent global temperatures are at the lower end of the historical range."

It is dated 2004 and credited to Richard B. Alley, a geologist and glaciologist at Penn State University who has worked with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Alley told AFP in an email that he had been receiving queries about the graph for more than a decade. He pointed out that the claim has been revealed to be misleading, including in a fact-check by specialist climate site Carbon Brief. A detailed response by Alley to the claim was published in the New York Times in 2010. In it, he explained that the data in the graph were from the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2), a drilling program by US research institutes that extracted ice cores.

Based on information posted on Junkscience.com Steve Milloy, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow, has used Twitter brilliantly to provide a clever, alternative, science-based response to the “climate” debate. Once Elon Musk took over the platform and allowed a non-state-sponsored narrative to be heard again, Milloy emerged from a shadow ban hell and now tops nearly 90,000 followers. His witty tweets encompassing sound scientific reasoning make him a must-follow on the issue. Using a recently released NOAA graph showing no rise in temperature over the past eight years, he tweeted that the scientific agency makes it official, “CO2 warming is a hoax.” The Tweet was picked... Milloy moved quickly past his 89,000 usual followers and reached more than 13 million views worldwide.

Usually accustomed to ignoring contrarian viewpoints because of the lockdown of free speech on Twitter, the state and corporate-sponsored media no longer have this luxury in the Musk-Twitter era. The gaslighters responded quickly. The likes of the Associated Press, which used to be the standard bearer for American Journalism, jumped into action with a “Fact Check” about the Milloy tweet that included the headline: “Temperature graph misrepresented... Austria’s version of the Associated Press (AAP), got into the action as well. Their “fact-checking” article declared victory for the good guys: “Scientists roast climate denier on cooling claim,” repeating the tired mantra of the Climate Left that somehow all real scientists are in agreement on the... The article’s Verdict (sounds official doesn’t it), was that Milloy’s claim was…”Misleading.” And then added, “The claim relies on cherry-picked data, selecting a particularly hot year as the base.

Longer-term data shows a clear trend of rising global temperatures.” The irony of the Left and their propaganda machine claiming that anyone other than themselves have cherry-picked data would make even Alanis Morissette blush. "A sensational paper in top science journal Nature has found 'no change in the warming rate beyond the 1970s,' blowing holes in alarmist claims that global temperatures are surging, says Chris Morrison," an October... Other posts and climate-skeptic publications drew similar conclusions across platforms and in languages, including French, Dutch, Greek, Italian and German, following the publication of a study (archived here) in the scientific journal, Nature, on... But using the article's conclusions to claim that there has been no additional warming since the 1970s is highly misguided, scientists say, noting that the models used in the study instead detect a consistent... "Our study affirms steadily increasing surface temperatures since the 1970s," Claudie Beaulieu, associate professor in the Ocean Sciences Department at the University of California Santa Cruz and lead author of the paper (archived here),... "It is very worrying to hear that our paper is used by climate deniers to make false claims," she said.

Temperature Graph Misrepresented To Deny Climate Change

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