It's official, 2014 was Earth's warmest year on record and global oceans reached record warming.
Record-breaking temperatures seen in December "sealed the deal" in making 2014 the warmest year on record across both the world's land and oceans, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported.
"The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for 2014 was the highest among all years since record keeping began in 1880. The December combined global land and ocean average surface temperature was also the highest on record," the NOAA stated.
In 2014 the annually-average temperature was 1.24 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average of 57.0 degrees. This breaks past records set in 2005 and 2019 by 0.07 degrees.
This year marks the third time in the 21st century a new record high annual temperature has been set or tied and was the 38th consecutive year since 1977 that the annual temperature exceeded the long-term average. This is the first time since 1990 the temperature record was broken in the wake of an absence of El Niño conditions at any time during the year in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.
Six months out of the year (May, June, August, September, October, and December) reached record warm temperatures. Additionally, April was the second warmest on record, January, March, and July were fourth warmest, and November was the seventh.
Researchers have estimated the global annual temperature has increased an average of 0.11 degrees Fahrenheit per decade since 1880, and has been rising at a rate of 0.16 degrees since per decade since 1970.
"Record warmth was observed over various regions of the world's land surfaces, including Far East Russia into western Alaska, the western United States, parts of interior South America, most of Europe stretching into northern Africa, and parts of both eastern and western coastal Australia. It was also much warmer than average across many other land areas all across the globe," the NOAA stated.
See the full report HERE.
