WASHINGTON (AP) — Last year wasn’t just the Earth’s hottest year on record — it left a century of high temperature marks in the dust.
The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and NASA announced Wednesday that 2015 was by far the hottest year in 136 years of record keeping.
NOAA said 2015’s temperature was 58.62 degrees Fahrenheit (14.79 degrees Celsius), passing 2014 by a record margin of 0.29 degrees. That’s 1.62 degrees above the 20th-century average. NASA, which measures differently, said 2015 was 0.23 degrees warmer than the record set in 2014.
Because of the wide margin over 2014, NASA calculated that 2015 was a record with 94 percent certainty, about double the certainty it had last year when announcing 2014 as a record.
Although 2015 is now the hottest on record, it was the fourth time in 11 years that Earth broke annual marks for high temperature.
“It’s getting to the point where breaking record is the norm,” Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe said. “It’s almost unusual when we’re not breaking a record.”
Scientists blame a combination of El Nino and increasing man-made global warming.
Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University said a strong El Nino, like this year’s, can add about a third of a degree of warming to Earth’s temperature.
“Records will happen during El Nino years due to the extra warming boost they provide,” Mann said in an email. “That boost of warmth however sits upon the ramp of global warming.”
And it’s likely to happen this year, too. NASA scientists and others said there’s a good chance that this year will pass 2015 as the hottest year on record, thanks to El Nino.
“2015 will be difficult to beat, but you say that almost every year and you get surprised,” said Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at the College of DuPage outside of Chicago.
Measurements from Japan and the University of California at Berkeley also show 2015 is the warmest on record. Satellite measurements, which scientists say don’t measure where we live and have a larger margin of error, calculate that last year was only the third hottest since 1979.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
But, but…It’s snowing in northern Minnesota, and Obama flies in a big jet. We’re going to turn into Sweden, and Bill Clinton’s cigar!
I hope someone is writing down the names of the Deniers so we know who to chase down with our pitchforks…
It wasn’t the hottest here in Michigan, but it was probably the only place in the world, on the entire map where it wasn’t unbelievably hotter. Even so, unlike Inhofe and his jolly snowmen, I believe global warming is a dangerous and real thing to keep denying. Unfortunately, ignoring climate science is a rite of passage into the Republican party, and continuing to deny its effects gets you the endorsement of the fossil fuel industry, along with some serious donations to your campaign. Their brain-dead ideology will end up getting lots of people killed by the effects of this problem if we don’t work to solving it as a country.
Once again you numbnuts out their…weather is different than climate. Learn some fucking basic science already, or at best rely on the 97% of climate scientists that have told us the science is unassailable.
We have two weathermen where I live, representing one channel here in GR, WOOD TV 8, that had come out years ago as climate deniers in regards to global-warming. One of them debated a climate scientist from NASA in a taped forum at one point. The other wrote ridiculous diatribes using junk science, with the help of a handful of paid scientists from the fossil fuel industry to “debate the science”. The intent was to debunk what they called the global warming crisis as a hoax, while claiming it was entirely made-up issue that was politically motivated.
Yes, there are Republican weathermen out there with an ideological bent too. I refuse to watch their weather reports, or the news that comes out of that station now because of their denialism. I can’t believe they’re still employed at the local station here either but its probably because it’s rightwing owned I’m guessing. Its fucking embarrassing to see these people claim to know science and spout fiction the way they do. Makes you wonder how many other local weathermen and women around the country are out there feeding this bunk to other local populations around the country with their take on the world’s climate. They pass themselves off as experts when their only expertise is the 10 day forecast at best.
New record?
WE’RE NUMBER ONE! WE’RE NUMBER ONE!
There’s got to be a plausible Biblical explanation; we just have to wait for it.