Until recently, thanks to NASA figures, it was believed that 1998 was the hottest year in the 20th century. This data was seized upon by global warming supporters to show that the world was becoming a frying pan, and man was turning up the heat.

Data, though, is often refined and recalibrated. When NASA retooled its yearly temperature figures recently, it was discovered that 1998 wasn’t the warmest year in the millennium. That dubious title now belongs to 1934.

The year 1998 only dropped one place though. It was the second hottest year during the past century. Third place belongs to 1921.

The corrections were apparently helped along by a blogger, Steve McIntyre of Toronto who operates the www.climateaudit.org blog.

Now it appears that four of the top 10 years in temperatures were from the 1930s: 1934, 1931, 1938 and 1939. Three of the top 10 warming years were from the last 10: 1998, 2006 and 1999. But four of the past six years fell well below average in warming, ranking lower than the year 1900.

By the way, when the errors were pointed out to James Hansen, one of the NASA scientists, he refused to provide algorithms to other researchers so they could simply check his work, thus hiding his own errors.

Mr. Hansen, if you recall, is the scientist who accused the government of trying to distort the science of global warming. He also accused the Bush administration of trying to silence him. He made this accusation on NPR, ABC, CBS, CNN and, it seems, every other television network known to man.

Clearly, Mr. Hansen’s critics and the bloggers who discovered his error have been paid off by ExxonMobil and are lackeys of the oil industry.

That’s the only possible explanation.

Well, except for those four hot years that occurred well before the current global warming controversy, and before scientists believe humans had any discernible impact on global temperatures.