Earth had its hottest decade on record

WASHINGTON (AP) — The decade that just ended was by far the hottest ever measured on Earth, capped off by the second-warmest year on record, two U.S. agencies reported. And scientists said they see no end to the way man-made climate change keeps shattering records.

“This is real. This is happening,” Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said at the close of a decade plagued by raging wildfires, melting ice and extreme weather that researchers have repeatedly tied to human activity.

The 2010s averaged 14.7 C worldwide, or 0.8 C higher than the 20th century average and more than one-fifth of a degree C warmer than the previous decade, which had been the hottest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NASA’s Schmidt said that overall, Earth is now about 1.2 C hotter since the beginning of the industrial age, a number that is important because in 2015 global leaders adopted a goal of preventing 1.5 C of warming since the rise of big industry in the mid- to late 1800s. He said that shows the global goal can’t be achieved.

NOAA said the average global temperature in 2019 was 14.85 C, or just a few hundredths of a degree behind 2016, when the world got extra heat from El Nino. That’s 0.95 C higher than the 20th century average.

The past five years have been the hottest five on record, nearly 0.9 C warmer than the 20th century average.