2014 warmest year on record, scientists say

PanARMENIAN.Net - 2014 was the warmest year on record, with global temperatures 0.68C (1.24F) above the long-term average, U.S. government scientists have said, according to BBC News.

The results mean that 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have occurred since the turn of the century.The analysis was published on Friday by NASA and NOAA researchers.

Last month, the World Meteorological Organization released provisional figures that predicted the past 12 months were set to be record breakers.

The long-term global average temperature is calculated from data collected between 1951 and 1980.

"This is the latest in a series of warm years, in a series of warm decades," said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

"While the ranking of individual years can be affected by chaotic weather patterns, the long-term trends are attributable to drivers of climate change that right now are dominated by human emissions of greenhouse gases," he added.

NASA and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintain two of the three global datasets of global temperatures. The UK's Met Office maintains the third.

Data from all three are used by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and formed the basis of its provisional figures in December.

Talking to journalists, Schmidt said the results from the two sets of data showed "a lot of warmth in the oceans".

"It shows very clearly that it has been the warmest year on record in the oceans but it wasn't quite the warmest year in the land records but combined it did give us the warmest year," he explained.

During a presentation of the two agencies' reports, Thomas Karl, director of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, said there was a "considerable amount of area where we saw the record highest temperature observed, such as many portions of Europe and every ocean had parts that were [the warmest on record]".

Australia was another nation to set record-breaking average temperatures.

But Dr Karl added that not all parts of the globe recorded temperatures above the long-term average. Records stretch back to the late 19th Century when scientists began using scientific instruments to collect temperature data.

Today, as well as in-situ instruments recording information on the Earth's surface, satellites closely monitor temperatures across the planet.

During its review of extreme weather during 2014, the WMO highlighted a number of record-breaking events:

-In September, parts of the Balkans received more than double the average monthly rainfall and parts of Turkey were hit by four times the average.

-The town of Guelmin in Morocco was swamped by more than a year's rain in just four days.

-Western Japan saw the heaviest August rain since records began.

-Parts of the western U.S. endured persistent drought, as did parts of China and Central and South America.

-Tropical storms, on the other hand, totaled 72 which is less than the average of 89 judged by 1981-2010 figures. The North Atlantic, western North Pacific and northern Indian Ocean were among regions seeing slightly below-average cyclone activity.