Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have agreed that this year 2014 might be the warmest year in record since 1880 – and this is after combined land and sea temperatures reach record highs at three different seasons of this year alone.
The month of October was the warmest month ever recorded after land and ocean temperatures yielded a record high of 58.5F – exceeding the 2003 record by .02F, and 1.3 degrees higher than the average recorded for the 20th century. The measured temperature between January and October of land and sea areas was 58.6F – exceeding the 1998 and 2010 records by .04 degrees, and 1.22F higher than the average for the 20th century. November 2013 and October 2014 was the warmest 12-month block with a record land-sea temperature of 58.2 degrees – exceeding the 20th century record it set a month ago by 1.2 degrees.
Deke Arndt, chief climate monitoring at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center states that “the oceans have been generally warming over time,” said Arndt, saying this year was “quite warm compared to even the warmest part of that history. Clearly the oceans are driving the warmth that we’ve seen around the planet.”
Arndt also explained that not all countries will experience the same level of warming trends because “every major ocean basin and all continents all had pieces, and some had significant pieces, of their area that were the warmest on record” during the record-breaking January-October time period.
The climate expert seems to agree with world leaders that greenhouse gases and manmade activities are impacting global warming. “This is truly global scale warmth that we see and it’s consistent with what we’d expect with increasing greenhouse gases. It is becoming pretty clear that 2014 will end up as the warmest year on record. The remaining question is by how much.”
The US is not currently experiencing much of this temperature warming due to the East Coast polar vortex, and the fact that the country makes up only 2% of the planet’s surface.