In terms of the climate this is a REALLY big deal.

Global warming marches on as NASA & NOAA confirm 2014 as hottest year on record

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Scott Sutherland

Meteorologist/Science Writer

Tuesday, January 20, 2015, 2:52 PM - The numbers are all in. The experts have pored over them, relating them back to weather records from the past 134 years, and it's now official. 2014 was the hottest year ever recorded, revealing a clear trend of global warming and climate change.

Japan's official meteorological agency was the first to tip the scales on this issue, when they put out their final numbers for the year last week. Now NOAA and NASA, two of the biggest weather and climate monitoring organizations in the world, have added their considerable weight of expertise to the topic, and they came to the exact same conclusion.

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According to NOAA's State of the Climate - Global Analysis:

The year 2014 was the warmest year across global land and ocean surfaces since records began in 1880. The annually-averaged temperature was 0.69oC (1.24oF) above the 20th century average of 13.9oC (57.0oF), easily breaking the previous records of 2005 and 2010 by 0.04oC (0.07oF). This also marks the 38th consecutive year (since 1977) that the yearly global temperature was above average. Including 2014, 9 of the 10 warmest years in the 135-year period of record have occurred in the 21st century. 1998 currently ranks as the fourth warmest year on record.

As shown in the graph below, the 2014 record didn't beat out previous years by just the barest of increments, as what happened when 2005 surpassed 1998 and when 2010 topped 2005. This jump in temperature was at least twice as big by comparison.

Below is the official list of the Top Ten Hottest Years on Record, with 2014 now on top. The anomalies show that, while the previous years are either tied or only separated by 0.01-0.02 degrees Celsius, 2014 far outranks them, surpassing the previous top year, 2010, by 0.04 degrees C.



Credit: NOAA

Climate Anomalies and Events for 2014

NOAA's Global Analysis has identified several anomalies and events throughout 2014 that registered as unusual or had possible links to climate change - extremes in heat, cold, precipitation, sea ice loss and growth and extreme tropical cyclone activity.



Credit: NOAA

In a statement from NASA issued today, Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said: “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.”

Remarkable by comparison

One of the most remarkable aspects of this particular record-breaking year is pointed out by Penn State climate scientists Michael E. Mann on his Facebook page:

Unlike past record years, 2014 broke the record without the "assist" of a large El Niño event. There was only the weakest semblance of an El Niño and tropical Pacific warmth contributed only moderately to the record 2014 global temperatures. Viewed in context, the record temperatures underscore the undeniable fact that we are witnessing, before our eyes, the effects of human-caused climate change. It is exceptionally unlikely that we would be seeing a record year, during a record warm decade, during a multidecadal period of warmth that appears to be unrivaled over at least the past millennium, were it not for the rising levels of planet-warming gases produced by fossil fuel burning.

No 'pause' to speak of

Overall, and perhaps most importantly, this new record confirms the warming trend that the world is on, contrary to the persistent message of so-called climate 'skeptics', who have been saying that global warming stopped in 1998.



Credit: NOAA

As the graph above clearly shows, there is an overall trend (the blue line that spans the entire graph) of increasing temperatures. However, with 2014 added to the record, any perceived 'pause' since 1998 vanishes, with the shorter, purple trend line clearly showing that the warming trend (although slower during those 15-16 years) is real and persistent, and that the overall trend is not slowing down.

The full details of NOAA's State of the Climate report is available on their website (click here), and NASA's press release regarding the announcement can be read here.