Watch Above: NASA is known for its work in space, but it’s also constantly analyzing our planet. Now, along with two other agencies, NASA is raising alarm bells, concluding that 2014 was the hottest year on record. Eric Sorenson reports.
TORONTO – Two separate analyses from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have found that 2014 was the warmest year in 134 years.
Since 1880, the planet’s average surface temperature has risen by 0.8 C, which NASA attributes to the increase in carbon dioxide and other human-caused — or anthropogenic — drivers. There are also regional differences: California has endured the worst drought in its history, while in 2014, parts of the Midwest endured a harsh and long winter.
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In Canada, 2014 also brought a brutally long and cold winter, while summer was cooler in parts of eastern Canada.
“This is the latest in a series of warm years, in a series of warm decades. While the ranking of individual years can be affected by chaotic weather patterns, the long-term trends are attributable to drivers of climate change that right now are dominated by human emissions of greenhouse gases,” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt in a press release.
Scientists know that there are fluctuations year-to-year due to global drivers, such as El Nino or La Nina events. These fluctuations are believed to have contributed to a relative “flattening” of the warming trend since 1998.
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Instruments from NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York found that the 10 warmest years on record, with the exception of 1998, have all occurred since 2000.
More than 6,300 weather stations as well as ship-based and buoy-based observations and those from Antarctic research stations are collected from GISS.
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