January 18, 2018•Update: January 19, 2018
By Barry Eitel
SAN FRANCISCO
NASA announced Thursday that 2017 was the second-warmest year on record based on global surface temperatures.
Even more troubling, the year neared the top spot without being boosted by an El Nino climate event, which raises temperatures.
NASA estimated that globally averaged temperatures last year were 0.9 degrees Celsius (1.62 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the average temperature between 1951 and 1980. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which uses different metrics, found that 2017 was the third-warmest year on record. Both government agencies agree that the five hottest years on record came after 2010.
According to NASA, the hottest year since recordkeeping began in 1880 was 2016, an El Nino year.
“Despite colder than average temperatures in any one part of the world, temperatures over the planet as a whole continue the rapid warming trend we've seen over the last 40 years,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), in a statement.
NASA noted that if the impacts of El Nino events were statistically removed from the data, 2017 would be the warmest year ever.
Researchers are placing blame for the trend squarely on climate change, especially because it appears the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions are able to overcome most natural warming patterns like El Nino.
Scientists are concerned that the earth is already close to passing by the goals set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement, which outlined a plan to keep temperature increases significantly under 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). If the temperature rises more than that level, scientists believe it will cause widespread environmental devastation – coral reefs, for example, would likely be wiped out. Last year, President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement.
"The increasing abundance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activities is the direct cause of the recent global warming,” research group Berkeley Earth, a non-profit focused on climate analysis, said in a statement.
“If the Paris Agreement’s goal of no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming is to be reached, significant progress towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions must be made soon.”
