2014? har-de-har-har.
NOAA says with 48% confidence, NASA says with 38% confidence.
'Using a Monte Carlo approach (Arguez et al, 2013), NCDC considered the known uncertainty of the global land and ocean annual temperature in the 2014 annual ranking. Taking into account the uncertainty and assuming all years (1880-2014) in the time series are independent, the chance of 2014 being
Warmest year on record: 48.0%
One of the five warmest years: 90.4%
One of the 10 warmest years: 99.2%
One of the 20 warmest years: 100.0%
Warmer than the 20th century average: 100.0%
Warmer than the 1981-2010 average: 100.0%
NCDC follows these conventions to categorize the confidence associated with assertions made with respect to ranks used in the report:
Probability Descriptor
> 99% "almost certain"
90% - 99% "very likely"
66.7% - 90% "likely"
50% - 66.7% "more likely than not"
33.3% - 50% "more unlikely than likely"
10% - 33.3% "unlikely"
1% - 10% "very unlikely"
< 1% "almost certainly not" '
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/13/supplemental/page-1So at 48% - "more unlikely than likely"