Separate studies report that last year was the warmest on record
(Reuters) — Last year was Earth’s warmest on record, bolstering the argument that humans are altering the planet’s climate by burning greenhouse gas-emitting fuels, according to a pair of analyses by two major U.S. agencies.
Separate studies by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed that 10 of the warmest years on record have occurred since 2000 with the exception of 1998.
The reports come at the start of a year when representatives of 200 governments will meet in Paris to try to agree on a deal to limit global warming to avoid floods, droughts, heat waves and rising sea levels blamed on increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, which result from burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil.
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“Taken together, the warm temperatures of the recent decades demonstrate the impact of greenhouse gases on our climate, and invalidate the sound bite that global warming has somehow ‘stopped,’” said Joe Casola, a staff scientist at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
Earth’s average surface temperature has warmed by .8 C since 1880, when record-keeping began, NASA said.
The trend is largely driven by the increase in carbon dioxide and other human emissions into the planet’s atmosphere, NASA said.
“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 Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York.
