NASA scientists are reporting that 2012 was the ninth warmest year on record. Researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies also note that the last year the Earth showed cooler-than-normal temperatures was 1976. In 2012, the global average temperature of 58.3 degrees Farenheit was 1 degree warmer than NASA's global averages.
Data from NASA satellites, spacecraft, and scientific experiments all point to ongoing climate change. Although the possibility of global climate change is still controversial, a growing number of Americans believe global warming and weird weather are a reality.
NASA scientists warned that seasons like the hotter-than-average summer of 2012 should serve as a wake-up call.
"The U.S. temperatures in the summer of 2012 are an example of a new trend of outlying seasonal extremes that are warmer than the hottest seasonal temperatures of the mid-20th century," NASA GISS director James E. Hansen said in a statement. "The climate dice are now loaded. Some seasons still will be cooler than the long-term average, but the perceptive person should notice that the frequency of unusually warm extremes is increasing. It is the extremes that have the most impact on people and other life on the planet."