Confirmed - 2014 was the hottest year on record

NOAA and NASA have jointly confirmed 2014 as the hottest year on record. Here is the chart of GISTemp, including the latest data for December 2014:

December came in at 0.72°C, the second hottest December on record. 2006 (0.74°C), was the hottest. The previous second warmest was 2003 (which was 0.71C).  (Corrected from earlier version h/t Jim Milks). The previous hottest calendar years were 2005 at 0.65°C and 2010 at 0.66°C above the 1951-2010 mean. This year was 0.68°C above that mean, despite there being no (official) El Nino.

Andrew Freedman reported that "There is less than a 1-in-27 million chance that Earth's record hot streak is natural". Nature News has a report about the hottest year, as does Justin Gillis of the New York Times, and Chris Mooney at the Washington Post. While the Union of Concerned Scientists pinched my line about how 65% of people living today have never ever experienced a year where the global average temperature is less than the twentieth century average.

Here's a video from NASA showing how Earth has warmed since 1880 :

You can read the NOAA global report here. Some highlights:

• During 2014, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.24°F (0.69°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest among all 135 years in the 1880–2014 record, surpassing the previous records of 2005 and 2010 by 0.07°F (0.04°C).
• Record warmth was spread around the world, including Far East Russia into western Alaska, the western United States, parts of interior South America, most of Europe stretching into northern Africa, parts of eastern and western coastal Australia, much of the northeastern Pacific around the Gulf of Alaska, the central to western equatorial Pacific, large swaths of northwestern and southeastern Atlantic, most of the Norwegian Sea, and parts of the central to southern Indian Ocean.
• During 2014, the globally-averaged land surface temperature was 1.80°F (1.00°C) above the 20th century average. This was the fourth highest among all years in the 1880–2014 record.
• During 2014, the globally-averaged sea surface temperature was 1.03°F (0.57°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest among all years in the 1880–2014 record, surpassing the previous records of 1998 and 2003 by 0.09°F (0.05°C).

If you're wondering how WUWT will handle the news, well Bob Tisdale promised an article showing how it was nothing but sunlight-fueled oceans that caused the warming, or because the oceans were hotter, or some nonsense like that. He can't or won't explain why or how this can happen when the sun isn't putting out any more energy than before. His main concern is to try to persuade anyone who'll still read his tripe that it's got nothing to do with CO2 or the greenhouse effect. His article hasn't appeared yet, but that will be the gist of it, though I expect he'll say it in many more words.