NOAA's 2016 temperature data. The thermometers aren't conspiring via e-mail. (credit: NOAA) Once upon a time (in mid-2015), some climate scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a study in the journal Science. This sort of thing happens all the time. Yet, in this case, all hell broke loose. The problem was that this study put yet another nail in the crowded lid of a coffin housing the claim that global warming had somehow suddenly ceased in 1998.