The world has just experienced its hottest decade on record, with 2019 among the warmest years ever seen, scientists have confirmed. Last year saw the second highest average global temperatures in records dating back to the 19th century, evidence from multiple data sets suggests. The data also shows that the past five years were the warmest in the 170-year series, and the 2010s were the hottest decade on record. Scientists at the UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre, the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and the UK National Centre for Atmospheric Science produce one of the global data sets, known as HadCRUT4. Scientists from US agencies Nasa and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) also produce data sets for global temperature, each dating back to 1880, and find that 2019 is the second warmest on record.

Source: The Irish Times January 15, 2020 15:56 UTC