No surprise, 2020 second warmest year on record
NOAA -- The planet continues to warm at an alarming rate. The surprise is not that 2020 was one of the warmest years on record, it’s that it was nearly the warmest year on record in what is a typical cool-cycle for the planet, La Nina.
A week after releasing the climate report for the United States, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published it’s global climate report.
Highlights of the report include.
- The warmest year on record in the northern hemisphere
- 2020 marks the 44th consecutive year (since 1977) with global land and ocean temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th-century average.
- The seven warmest years have occurred since 2014; the 10 warmest years have occurred since 2005. The year 1998 is no longer among the 10 warmest years on record, currently ranking as the 11th-warmest year in the 141-year record.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) also posted concurring analysis from five independent climate reporting agencies.
WMO consolidation of 5 major temperature datasets:
— World Meteorological Organization (@WMO) January 14, 2021
?️2020 one of the 3 warmest years on record, rivalled 2016 for the top spot
2011-2020 warmest decade
Warmest 6 years all since 2015
Cooling #LaNiña put a brake on the heat only at very end of the year.#climatechangepic.twitter.com/Lrx75kai13
There were records around the globe for costly weather related disasters, including a record tying (2018) 103 named storms, word wide.
Climate change comes with a cost, as rapid changes outpace infrastructure, agriculture and natural adaptation to new extremes in heat and precipitation.
Locally we continue with yet another near-snowless winter.