Global temperatures in 2019 were the second-highest recorded, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday.
The past five years have been the warmest of the past 140 years, the independent federal government agencies reported Wednesday, with 2019 coming in second to 2016.
“The decade that just ended is clearly the warmest decade on record,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “Every decade since the 1960s clearly has been warmer than the one before.”
The average global surface temperature is now more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit above what it was in the late 19th century, long-term heating caused by increased emissions of greenhouse gases from human activity, the agencies said.
“This shows that what’s happening is persistent, not a fluke due to some weather phenomenon. We know that the long-term trends are being driven by the increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” Schmidt said.
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