By Brandon Miller
Last year was the fourth-hottest year ever recorded, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA, which means that the past five years have been the five warmest years in the modern record.
NOAA and NASA discussed 2018’s global temperature and climate in a joint news conference Wednesday; both agencies maintain independent data that goes back to 1880 to monitor temperatures around the globe. The announcement was delayed several weeks due to the government shutdown that resulted in many NOAA and NASA employees being furloughed.
If it seems like you’ve heard this before, you have: Eighteen of the hottest 19 years have occurred since 2001.
Earth just experienced one of the warmest years on record
By Brandon Miller, CNN
Updated at 2157 GMT (0557 HKT) February 6, 2019
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(CNN) — Last year was the fourth-hottest year ever recorded, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA, which means that the past five years have been the five warmest years in the modern record.
NOAA and NASA discussed 2018’s global temperature and climate in a joint news conference Wednesday; both agencies maintain independent data that goes back to 1880 to monitor temperatures around the globe. The announcement was delayed several weeks due to the government shutdown that resulted in many NOAA and NASA employees being furloughed.
If it seems like you’ve heard this before, you have: Eighteen of the hottest 19 years have occurred since 2001.
Global average temperature anomaly for 2018, from NOAA. Warmer colors indicate temperatures above average, while cooler colors indicate below average temperatures.
Global average temperature anomaly for 2018, from NOAA. Warmer colors indicate temperatures above average, while cooler colors indicate below average temperatures.
“2018 is yet again an extremely warm year on top of a long-term global warming trend,” according to Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
The average global temperature has risen about 2 degrees Fahrenheit, or a little over 1 degree Celsius, since the 1880s. That puts us more than two-thirds of the way to the warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius that was set in the Paris climate agreement.
“This warming has been driven in large part by increased emissions into the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases caused by human activities,” Schmidt said.
Record warmth was seen over much of Europe for 2018, which saw summer temperatures well over 90 degrees Fahrenheit — over 32 degrees Celsius — all the way up to the Arctic Circle. Record warmth extended along the Mediterranean and the Middle East, as well.
Polar regions feeling the heat
Temperatures continue to warm fastest in the polar regions, where alarming melting of ice was once again observed in 2018.
Annual sea ice extent in both the Arctic and the Antarctic regions in 2018 was the second smallest on record; both poles came in just behind 2017, which was the record smallest since satellite observations of the region began in 1979.
Wettest year in 35 years for the United States
