NASA: last decade warmest on record
January 22nd, 2010A new NASA analysis of global surface temperature shows the decade January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record.
Temperature changes for the last decade—January 2000 to December 2009—relative to the 1951-1980 mean. Warmer areas are in red, cooler areas in blue. The largest temperature increases occurred in the Arctic and a portion of Antarctica. Credit: NASA
2009 was tied for the second warmest year in the modern record, a fraction of a degree behind 2005. In the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year since modern records began in 1880.
Average global temperatures have increased by about 0.8°C (1.4°F) since 1880. Rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are the key factors causing the rise in temperatures since 1880.
Other factors, including changes in the sun’s irradiance, oscillations of sea surface temperature in the tropics, and changes in aerosol levels, can also cause slight increases or decreases in the planet’s temperature. Aerosols produced by burning fossil fuels have probably counteracted about half of the warming produced by man-made greenhouse gases. In 2009, even the deepest solar minimum in the period of satellite data wasn’t enough to offset global warming.