An updated temperature analysis by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit has confirmed that 2010, not 1998, was the warmest year since record keeping began in the late 19th Century. The new analysis adds in temperature data from 400 stations across northern Canada, Russia, and the Arctic, which is warmer the fastest but had been left out of the previous analysis.
“The new study brings together our latest and most comprehensive databases of land and marine temperature observations, along with recent advances in our understanding of how measurements were made at sea. These have been combined to give us a clearer picture of what the historical data can tell us about global climate change over the past 161 years,” Colin Morice, climatologist at the Met Office, said in a press release.
The new analysis pushes 1998 to third place, behind 2010 (first) and 2005 (second), and tracks closer to other temperature datasets from NASA and NOAA, which found that 2010 and 2005 were tied for warmest years.
The updated analysis undercuts denialists of climate change who have long-argued that global warming has “stopped” and the world was growing cooler. This argument, however, was always unscientific as the proof of climate change does not hinge on single record years, but overall trends that clearly show the world is warming rapidly.
Global temperatures have risen about 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.44 degrees Fahrenheit) since the Industrial Revolution. The past decade (2000-2009) was the warmest on record, and there hasn’t been a single year below the 20th Century average since 1975.
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