Past Decade Warmest on Record

The past decade was the warmest on record, and 2009 was the second-warmest year since 1880, when modern temperature measurement began, according to data released by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The NASA study showed that global temperatures have been rising at the relatively rapid rate of 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit per decade for the past 30 years. A separate temperature analysis by the U.S. National Climatic Data Center also concluded that the 2000’s were the warmest decade since record-keeping began, although that study disagreed with the NASA study on whether 2009 was the second or the fifth warmest year on record. There is no debate, however, that the 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1998, or that in the Southern Hemisphere 2009 was the warmest year since temperature measurements began. Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at Goddard, said the debate over which recent year was the hottest is irrelevant, and that the key data is the trend of the world warming by roughly 1 degree F every 30 years. Average global temperatures have risen by roughly 1.5 F since 1880. NASA’s data was collected from more than 1,000 meteorological stations worldwide, satellite observations of sea surface temperatures, and Antarctic research station records.