February 8, 2007
2006
WAS EARTH'S
FIFTH WARMEST YEAR
Climatologists
at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City
have found that 2006 was the
fifth warmest year in the past century.
Other
groups that study climate change also rank these years as among the
warmest,
though the exact rankings vary depending upon details of the analyses.
Results
differ especially in regions of sparse measurements, where scientists
use
alternative methods of estimating temperature change.
Goddard Institute researchers used temperature data from weather
stations on
land, satellite measurements of sea surface temperature since 1982 and
data
from ships for earlier years.
"2007
is likely to be warmer than 2006," said James Hansen, director of NASA
GISS, "and it may turn out to be the warmest year in the period of
instrumental measurements. Increased warmth is likely this year because
an El
Nino is underway in the tropical Pacific
Ocean
and because of continuing increases in human-made greenhouse gases."
Most
places on the globe have warmed in recent decades, with the greatest
warming at
high latitudes in the Arctic Ocean, Alaska,
Siberia and the Antarctic Peninsula.
Most
ocean areas have warmed. Climatologists say that warming is not due to
local
effects of heat pollution in urban areas, a point demonstrated by
warming in
remote areas far from major cities.
In
their
analysis for the 2005 calendar year, GISS climatologists noted the
highest
global annual average surface temperature in more than a century.
For
more information and images,
visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/2006_warm.html
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/2006_warm.html
##
Contact:
Leslie McCarthy
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
212-678-5507
Leslie.M.McCarthy@nasa.gov
This text is
derived from:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/2006_warm.html
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