By Caitlin E. Werrell and Francesco Femia, E-International Relations CC BY-NC 4.0 This article is an abridged version of a forthcoming article for The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University. The end of the Cold War coincided with the beginning of global awareness about the risks…
2018 was the fourth hottest year on record. Earth has been warming up for decades. The last five years are the hottest five years on record and the last four were all more than 1 degree Celsius, warmer than the 19th Century average.
A warmer climate contributes to melting polar ice and mountain glaciers, rising sea levels, more severe droughts, longer fire seasons.
NASA and NOAA work together to study the temperature from weather stations, ships and buoys in the ocean, and Antarctic research stations.
Credits: Kathryn Mersmann (USRA): Lead Producer Ellen T. Gray (ADNET Systems Inc.): Lead Writer Patrick Lynch (NASA/GSFC): Lead Public Affairs Officer Gavin A. Schmidt (NASA/GSFC GISS): Lead Scientist
Earth’s global surface temperatures in 2017 were the second warmest since modern record-keeping began in 1880, according to an analysis by NASA.
Continuing the planet’s long-term warming trend, globally averaged temperatures in 2017 were 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.90 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 1951 to 1980 mean, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. That is second only to global temperatures in 2016. Last year was the third consecutive year in which temperatures were more than 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) above late nineteenth-century levels. NASA’s temperature analyses incorporate surface temperature measurements from 6, 300 weather stations, ship- and buoy-based observations of sea surface temperatures, and temperature measurements from Antarctic research stations.
These raw measurements are analyzed using an algorithm that considers the varied spacing of temperature stations around the globe and urban heating effects that could skew the conclusions. These calculations produce the global average temperature deviations from the baseline period of 1951 to 1980. The full 2017 surface temperature data set and the complete methodology used to make the temperature calculation are available at:http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
GISS is a laboratory within the Earth Sciences Division of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The laboratory is affiliated with Columbia University’s Earth Institute and School of Engineering and Applied Science in New York. NASA uses the unique vantage point of space to better understand Earth as an interconnected system. The agency also uses airborne and ground-based monitoring, and develops new ways to observe and study Earth with long-term data records and computer analysis tools to better see how our planet is changing.
NASA shares this knowledge with the global community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet.
This color-coded map in Robinson projection displays a progression of changing global surface temperature anomalies from 1880 through 2017. Higher than normal temperatures are shown in red and lower then normal termperatures are shown in blue. The final frame represents the global temperatures 5-year averaged from 2013 through 2017. Scale in degree Celsius.
