"All five of the major temperature indices — NASA’s GISTemp, National Climate Data Center (NCDC), Hadley Centre/UAE (HadCRUT3v), University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH), and Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) — have published their estimates of 2010 global surface or close-to-surface temperatures.
NASA reports that 2010 was tied with 2005 as the hottest year on record. NCDC also reports that 2010 was tied with 2005 for the hottest year on record, and Hadley, UAH, RSS reported 2010 as the second hottest year on record.
In all cases, except perhaps RSS, the 2010 temperature was close enough to other years to be within the margin of measurement error, so the ranking of individual years as hottest is not necessary the most meaningful metric."
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2011/02/global-temperature-in-2010-hottest-year/
Clearly the folks at the Yale Forum don't agree that "Most temperature records have 1998 as the warmest year on record".
I've already posted the analysis of the World Meteorological Organization who also disagree with you.
1998 temperatures were pushed way above normal by an extremely strong El Nino. In 1998 there was a large transfer of heat from the ocean to the air. The record set in 1998 was summer sea surface temperatures.
Which brings up the issue of judging global warming by measuring only atmospheric temperature. Most of the human created warming has been absorbed by the oceans. If we look at the larger issue, here's what we get...
Figure 1: Total Earth Heat Content anomaly from 1950 (Murphy 2009). Ocean data taken from Domingues et al 2008. Land + Atmosphere includes the heat absorbed to melt ice.
As you squint to see if you can find one year in the past that might have been as hot as more recent years and pretend that a spike a decade back is somehow meaningful, you loose contact with the important facts. We've created a major problem for ourselves. One that cannot be argued away with cherry/nit picking.
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