Last Decade Was Hottest Ever, and We 'Haven't Seen Anything Yet'

NASA, NOAA say the 2010s set a record
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jan 15, 2020 2:34 PM CST
2010s Were the Hottest Decade Ever: NASA, NOAA
In this Nov. 1, 2019, file photo, flames from a backfire consume a hillside as firefighters battle the Maria Fire in Santa Paula, Calif.   (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

The decade that just ended was by far the hottest ever measured on Earth, capped off by the second-warmest year on record, two US agencies reported Wednesday. And scientists said they see no end to the way man-made climate change keeps shattering records, the AP reports. The 2010s averaged 58.4 degrees Fahrenheit worldwide, or 1.4 degrees higher than the 20th century average and more than one-third of a degree warmer than the previous decade, which had been the hottest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The decade had eight of the 10 hottest years on record. The only other years in the top 10 were 2005 and 1998. NASA and NOAA also calculated that 2019 was the second-hottest year in the 140 years of record-keeping. Five other global teams of monitoring scientists agreed, based on temperature readings taken on Earth's surface, while various satellite-based measurements said it was anywhere from the hottest year on record to the third-hottest.

Several scientists said the coming years will be even hotter, knocking these years out of the record books. “If you think you've heard this story before, you haven't seen anything yet,” Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said at the close of a decade plagued by raging wildfires, melting ice and extreme weather that researchers have repeatedly tied to human activity. Schmidt said Earth as a whole is probably the hottest it has been during the Holocene—the past 11,500 years or so—meaning this could be the warmest period since the dawn of civilization. But scientists' estimates of ancient global temperatures, based on tree rings, ice cores and other telltale signs, are not precise enough to say that with certainty. Scientists said the the decade-long data is more telling than the year-to-year measurements, where natural variations such as El Nino, the periodic warming of the Pacific Ocean, come into play. (More dire warnings from scientists here.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X