2019 Was The Second Warmest Year Since 1880, According To NASA & NOAA

The National Center For Environmental Information released their Global Climate Report for 2019, and things seem to be heating up.

“The decade that just ended is clearly the warmest decade on record,” says Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. “Every decade since the 1960s clearly has been warmer than the one before.”

Not only was this decade record breaking, but 2019 specifically was the second warmest year ever recorded in human history. Record keeping began in 1880, and has continued thoroughly throughout the past 140 years. The current record for hottest year recorded is held by the year 2016.

The report was created with data received from both NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). According to the data, “the global annual temperature has increased at an average rate of 0.13°F per decade since 1880 and over twice that rate (0.32°F) since 1981.”

In addition to the warmed temperatures, the report noted an increase in “weather and climate disasters” across the country. Between 1980 and 2019, the average number of hurricanes and other natural disasters was 6.5 per year, but in the last five years that average has gone up to 13.8. 

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