Joint NASA and NOAA analyses of the 2019 global surface temperature revealed it was the 2nd warmest, when compared to that of 2016. The findings show that during the recent five years, the planet continues to experience the warmest temperatures ever recorded during the past 140 years and since 1880, when modern-record keeping first began.
Using data derived from statistical analysis of global temperatures and climate models, NASA and NOAA scientists arrived at a conclusion, confirming that the main drivers of global warming are the human-produced greenhouses gases, particularly carbon dioxide. According to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Director Gavin Schmidt, temperatures had already crossed past the warming territory of above 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the year 2015, to which there was no going back.
Their analyses show that what has been transpiring persistently in the past five years is indicative of a long term trend, and not a fluke caused by some weather phenomenon. GISS Director Schmidt said that they also know that the growing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been driving the increase in temperatures. He remarked that
”Since the 1960s, it was clear that every decade was warmer than the decade before.”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on the other hand, found out that the annual mean temperatures in the Arctic reached more than the warmer-than-average mean temperature exhibited by the rest of the world. The rise in temperature in the Arctic occurred faster by as much as three times more.
As a result, the continuously rising temperatures caused massive melting in Greenland and Antarctica, and spurred rises in ocean levels that contributed to the development of extreme and violent natural events. Most of which brought about intense precipitations, heatwaves, earthquakes and wildfires.
Devastating Events that Transpired in the Year 2016
Inasmuch as the year 2016 was the warmest, it was also the year when the most devastating events occurred in several countries.
1. Winter Storm Jonas a.k.a “The Storm of the Century”.
2. The 6.4 Earthquake in Taiwan that toppled buildings in the City of Tainan.
3. Series of California Wildfires that totaled 6,938 fires, which caused the burning of about 565,070 acres of land during the year.
4. The 3 strong earthquakes in Italy that occurred one after another in a span of three months. The initial quake killed hundreds of people when medieva-agel stone buildings collapsed.
5. Hurricane Matthew, touted as the strongest storm to have occurred in the Atlantic, which rose briefly to a Category 5 status.
6. The 7.8-magnitude earthquake in New Zealand that was followed by a tsunami.
7. The 2016 Fukushima Earthquake in Japan and the combining tsunami that brought waves measuring 3-meters tall. The earthquake shook the entire world since the forces of the calamities caused damages to the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant.
9. The 7.8-magnitude Earthquake that struck @estern Indonesia, followed by another 6.5 quake before the end of the year, which killed at least a hundred.
The year 2019 saw more of the devastations caused by powerful hurricanes, stronger earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires and the occurrences of intense heat waves in different global regions. In India, the country nearly duplicated its 2016 all-time record high of 123.8 degrees Fahrenheit (51 degrees Celsius).
