2014 - Hottest Year Recorded In Human History

Earth had its warmest year on record in 2014, said NOAA and NASA at a joint press conference today. According to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, global surface temperatures in 2014 were 1.24°F (0.69°C) above the 20th century average, highest among all years in the 1880-2014 record, easily breaking the previous records of 2005 and 2010 by 0.07°F (0.04°C). Using independent measurement techniques but mostly the same set of surface stations, NASA also rated 2014 as the warmest year on record, as did the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). The other widely-cited global temperature measurement, from the UK Met Office, has not yet been released for 2014. Because there are variations in how each group handles the Arctic and other data-sparse areas, there are slight differences in the "top ten" lists of warmest years produced by each group. However, 2014 is the first year since 2005 that has topped the temperature charts for both NASA and NOAA.