Saw Lucia's post about NOAA/NCDC global temperatures being warmer in April, and boy was she right. The April data that NOAA/NCDC has posted on their FTP site has had major adjustments done to it since the March 2011 dataset.
The total cumulative warming that NOAA added to the dataset was 3.42 degrees of anomaly. In summary, from 1880 to 1902, global temperatures were adjusted warmer; from 1902 to 1955, the monthly global temperatures were made consistently cooler; and since 1955, they religiously increased global warming by adjusting up the temperature for most months. This is what taxpayer funded, bureaucrat-scientists call "science."
This is not a new fabrication phenomenon. This has been done multiple times previously, with each having the exact same outcome: cool the earlier years, then bake the later years.
The world's major climate agencies are all on a mission to convince policymakers and the public that global warming is "unequivocal." Because current temperatures are not much different than those warm years in the 1930's, NOAA has cooled the earlier periods, then warmed the later years to reach global warming nirvana - "unprecedented."
(click on image to enlarge)
Why isn't this unequivocal and unprecedented temperature fabrication reported by the "science" reporters at the NYT, WAPO or CBS? Well, they decided long ago not to report the accurate and objective truth about climate evidence due to their liberal/left biases - and, btw, 'gloom & doom' sells more papers and makes profits, thank you very much!
Update: Should have noted the new NOAA/NCDC anomalies are the result of their referenced new 'Version 3' of the data.
Update 2: For more context, the below cumulative temperature adjustments (multiple) that NOAA/NCDC have "produced" since 2008.
Update 3: The below shows the amount of adjustment made on each month since publication of the 2008 NOAA/NCDC dataset. Again, it's clearly the bureaucrat-scientists' objective to make recent global warming appear greater than it was in contrast to the earlier 20th century.
Additional fabrication temperature charts. Modern and historical temperature charts.