Rising temperatures last year culminated in the world’s hottest decade in modern times, federal climate scientists said on Thursday.
In a new climate study, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ranked 2020 as a draw with 2016 as the warmest year since the beginning of official record keeping in 1880. The record heat came despite a cooling current from the Pacific Ocean La Niña , which contained slightly decreased global temperatures in December.
In a separate assessment released at the same time, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which depends on slightly different temperature records and methods, calculated that the average global temperature last year was the second highest so far – only 0.04 degrees Fahrenheit shy to tie the record set in 2016.
“These long-term trends are very, very clear,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. “This is another piece of evidence that tells us that the planet is heating up decade after decade.”
NASA and NOAA scientists have labeled 2020 as a year of extremes, driven by rising levels of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, that retain heat in the atmosphere.