Global temperatures are steadily on the rise since the eighties (source: NOAA)

This week Nasa and Noaa reseachers both presented their conclusions of their calculations on weather and climate data collected during 2014. Using different data analysis tools, they came to the same result: 2014 is the warmest year ever since records began in the late 19th century.  This doesn’t come as a surprise. At the end of last year, the World Meteorological Organization already predicted it would become a record-breaking year. Unlike other record years like 1998 and 2005, there was no El Nino to boost global temperatures. The researchers pointed out that most of the increase of global temperatures is due to sea warming.

Climate deniers like to point out one year is not enough to draw conclusions about the climate. They’re completely right. But this is not about 2014 alone. Since February 1985 not a single month has been cooler than average. That makes 20 years of above average temperatures, with nine of the last 10 warmest years on record all occuring in the 21st century. Journalism group Climate Central puts it like this: the odds of such a year happening by chance rather than due to a combination of man made pollution and natural climate variability are less than 1-in-27 million.

The researchers stress that this results, together with many other climate indicators, makes the scientific evidence even stronger that mankind is disrupting the climate and serious action is needed very soon now.

Sources

NASA

Mashable