Data collected from around the globe indicate that 2007 ranks as the second-warmest year on record, according to a new analysis from climatologists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
Findings from a second team of scientists, at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, suggest that last year was the fifth warmest on record — but the groups reached the same conclusion on where Earth’s climate has been headed for the past quarter-century. Seven of the eight warmest years on record, scientists say, have occurred since 2001.
“We’ve got a sustained warming of the planet, which is unequivocal,” said Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at Goddard.
According to the NASA analysis, the global average land-ocean temperature last year was 58.2 degrees, slightly more than 1 degree above the average temperature between 1951 and 1980, which scientists use as a baseline. A 1-degree rise represents a major shift in a world where average temperatures over broad regions rarely vary more than a couple of hundredths of a degree.
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Items compiled from Tribune news services.
