AFP/File Lionel Bonaventure
The once prestigious Lancet medical journal has made the astounding claim the year 2023 saw “the highest global temperatures in over 100,000 years,” even though temperature data collection only began in the 19th century.
According to NASA, three of the world’s most complete temperature tracking records, maintained by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center, and the U.K. Meteorological Office’s Hadley Centre, began in 1880.
Although sporadic attempts to measure temperature were made, “there are too few data before 1880 for scientists to estimate average temperatures for the entire planet,” NASA notes.
Moreover, because proxy records from things like tree rings, pollen counts, and ice cores differ fundamentally from direct measurements, “scientists typically do not include them on the same charts as the instrumental record,’” NASA adds.
Despite this inconvenient historical record, the Lancet insists in its latest issue that in 2023, “the world saw the highest global temperatures in over 100 000 years, and heat records were broken in all continents through 2022.”
This was not the Lancet’s only extravagant,
