The wrongly calculated temperature statistics have left Nasa with egg on its face, but should have little long term effect beyond handing global warming-deniers a propaganda coup.

However embarrassing the oversight may have been, the adjustment to the temperature records from the United States is a matter of hundredths of a degree and does not alter the overall trend.

The records that have had to be adjusted were from the US, excluding the states of Alaska and Hawaii, which forms about 2 per cent of the world’s surface.

Though the inaccurate figures would have been included in the calculations of average global temperatures, they have a negligible impact on the worldwide figures.

The temperature figures that were found to be flawed were not inaccurate on their own, but Nasa had failed to ensure they had been adjusted. Raw data rather than adjusted figures had been used.

Temperature records have to be adjusted by scientists so as to make the statistics from different meteorological stations comparable.

Adjustments take into account factors such as whether the readings were taken at the same time of day and whether the meteorological stations has always been in the same place.

Small changes in circumstances can make a big difference to the compatibility of the statistics. Urban sprawl, for example, can mean a meteorological station that was in the countryside 50 years ago is today part of a city, making comparison of temperature records pointless without taking the changes into account.

In terms of worldwide average temperatures, the impact of the mistake is in the order of about a thousandth of a degree Celsius.

Whether the hottest or the second hottest year in the US’s recorded history, 1998 remains a hot year and is one of an increasing number of above averagely warm years in the past decade.

Global warming is still, according to temperature measurements around the world, taking place.

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