Do the following statements conflict?

-- NASA's conclusion: "2009 was tied for the second warmest year in the modern record, a new NASA analysis of global surface temperature shows."

-- NOAA's conclusion: "For 2009, global temperatures tied with 2006 as the fifth-warmest on record."

Not really. As each of these groups operate independently and the data sets were gathered independently from sources all around the world, the fact that the result is so close actually re-affirms the basic conclusion. Look at the following chart of their comparative analysis from the last 30 years:


Click the image to enlarge.


What is most important is that they used their own process and over 30 years have consistently come to the same basic conclusion with very little difference.