Last year was the warmest year on record, according to a newly released global report.
Climate markers continue to show global warming trendState of the Climate in 2014 report available online.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its annual State of the Climate for 2014, Thursday.
A total of 413 scientists from 58 countries around the world contributed to the report, the 25th in a series that is based on data collected by environmental monitoring stations and instruments on land, water, ice and in space. Discussions and viewpoints have been taken of hundreds of scientists and after that they were able to have a picture of what had happened in 2014.
Deke Arndt, a report co-editor and chief of NOAA’s climate monitor program, said the seas “were just ridiculous” past year.
Professor Thorne said it was an “open question” as to whether the report would help drive an agreement in Paris, but that it showed that scientists had an “increasing ability” to diagnose the climate system.
Do your recent weather memories include an unnaturally high number of heatwaves, droughts, and record-breaking temperatures? The indicators often reflect many thousands of measurements from multiple independent datasets. The global average Carbon dioxide level in 2014 was 397.2 parts per million. This compares with a global average of 354 ppm in 1990 when the report was first published. Africa had above average temperatures for most of the year. The warmth was widespread across land areas.
Ireland is among 20 countries in Europe which experienced its warmest year on record, with above-average temperatures reported nearly everywhere.
“For example, the lower latitudes of eastern North America and parts of Russian Federation were well below average during this period – up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit below average”, Blunden says.
The oceans in particular have seen dramatic changes as a result of heat trapped by greenhouses gases from human activity. But 2014 at least was the second-warmest and undoubtedly a record-setting year on a local level for many places on the globe.
There were 91 tropical cyclones worldwide in 2014, slightly more than the 30-year average of 82.
The report comes in advance of a United Nations conference in Paris later this year, where it is hoped world leaders will agree a global strategy to limit warming to 2C and set out clear targets to reduce emissions from industry, transport, agriculture and other sectors.
The Arctic continued to warm; sea ice extent remained low: The Arctic experienced its fourth warmest year since records began in the early 20th century. On the North Slope of Alaska, record high temperatures at 20-meter depth were measured at four of five permafrost observatories.