Despite a somewhat cooler summer in Alaska, it was truly hot last year for most of the globe.
Goddard Institute
The Earth’s average temperature over land and water was fifth highest on record, since the 1880s, according to a report issued last week by climatologists with the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.
Only 2005, 1998, 2002 and 2003 broasted the planet to higher didgets.
The report came only weeks after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared that climate warming was “unequivocal” — and 90 percent likely that observed warming during the past century has been caused by greenhouse gas emissions from cars, powerplants and smokestacks.
GISS/NASA
Though the Arctic has seen far more warming than the rest of the globe over the past decades, with Alaska increasing significantly since the 1970s, 2006 brought cooler temperatures and more summer rain.
“Annual temperatures for 2006 averaged across the state of Alaska ranked 33rd warmest since 1918: the coolest annual period since 1999,” the National Climate Research Center reported last month. “Both spring and summer were slightly cooler than average and fall was slightly warmer. Wildfires across Alaska were not as active as in recent years.”
Not so for the rest of the globe.
GISS/NASA
Climatologists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City have found that 2006 was the fifth warmest year in the past century.
Goddard Institute researchers used temperature data from weather stations on land, satellite measurements of sea surface temperature since 1982 and data from ships for earlier years, the report stated.
More detail, from Leslie McCarthy at GISS:
“2007 is likely to be warmer than 2006,” said James Hansen, director of NASA GISS, “and it may turn out to be the warmest year in the period of instrumental measurements. Increased warmth is likely this year because an El Nino is underway in the tropical Pacific Ocean and because of continuing increases in human-made greenhouse gases.”
Most places on the globe have warmed in recent decades, with the greatest warming at high latitudes in the Arctic Ocean, Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic Peninsula. Most ocean areas have warmed. Climatologists say that warming is not due to local effects of heat pollution in urban areas, a point demonstrated by warming in remote areas far from major cities.
In their analysis for the 2005 calendar year, GISS climatologists noted the highest global annual average surface temperature in more than a century.