Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA have announced that 2015 was the hottest year, by far, since record keeping began in 1880. Records for global temperatures were kept starting in 1880.
Advertisement
NASA’s analysis estimated that global temperatures a year ago jumped about 0.23 degrees Fahrenheit, or 0.13 degrees Celsius, compared to 2014, while NOAA’s findings are even worse, indicating a rise of 0.29 degrees Fahrenheit, or 0.16 degrees Celsius.
As for the United States, NOAA released that data last week, saying that for the 19th consecutive year, the annual average temperature for the continental USA was hotter than the 20th century average. According to NASA, the change in temperature is mainly because of the increase in carbon dioxide and other human made emissions into the atmosphere.
However, that national average hides some massive regional temperature swings, including record-breaking averages across British Columbia and the third-warmest year on record for the southern Prairies.
Not every part of the world saw the record temperatures, a fact NASA attributed to “weather dynamics”.
While El Niño contributed to the warmth seen this past year, “the trend over time is why we’re having a record warm year”, he said. That’s according to independent analyses done by NASA and NOAA.
“2015 was remarkable even in the context of the ongoing El Niño”, said Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Director Gavin Schmidt. The warmest year occurred in 2012.
The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says 2015’s average temperature was 58.62F (14.79C).
“The factors causing this trend are continuing to accelerate”, Schmidt said.
Advertisement
Also, where weather locations are changes over time. So yeah, NASA is pretty sure 2015 was the hottest. This means that the world is now heating up rapidly, rather than gradually, as it had done after the last El Niño in 1998. These raw measurements are analyzed using an algorithm that considers the varied spacing of temperature stations around the globe and urban heating effects that could skew the conclusions if left unaccounted for. Climate scientists have to take this into account when looking at temperature measurements. The result of these calculations is an estimate of the global average temperature difference from a baseline period of 1951 to 1980.
