Lots of clima-hullaballo this week in the media thanks NOAA and this announcement in NOAA’s “State of the Climate” report seen here: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/

They state:

The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for November 2013 was record highest for the 134-year period of record, at 0.78°C (1.40°F) above the 20^th century average of 12.9°C (55.2°F).

Much of the global “record highest” claim hinges on this one point about Russia:

Note the +5C anomalies in that region in the map cited by NCDC:

Source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/

But, according to satellite temperatures, the ranking claimed by NCDC isn’t anywhere near to “record warmest”. Dr. John Christy gives these values for the satellite data sources of global temperature and their ranks:

• UAH Nov 2013 9th warmest Nov (0.20 C cooler than warmest Nov.)
• RSS Nov 2013 16th warmest Nov (0.22 C cooler than warmest Nov.)

And, when we look at…