2019 Dubbed the Second-Hottest Year Ever
Government researchers officially announced 2019 was the second-warmest year ever, just shy of the record set in 2016, closing out the hottest decade on record, The New York Times reports.
According to analyses by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the cause for this increase in temperature is in large part due to “emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from the burning of fossil fuels. That much warming means the world is far from meeting goals set to combat climate change.”
An increase in temperature isn’t surprising; since the 1960s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one, however, the second half of the 2010s was especially warm, with the hottest five years ever occurring in this time span.
“These trends are the footprints of human activity stomping on the atmosphere,” Gavin A. Schmidt, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said. “We know that this has been driven by human activities.”
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