Year 2020 tied for Hottest Year on record

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 Year 2020 tied for Hottest Year on record

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Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

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1. A bad year: The year 2020 surely was one of the hottest years in recorded history, according to data by NASA and NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). NASA says 2020 tied with 2016 for the hottest year in the books, while NOAA placed it in the number-two spot.
2. Without El Nino: 2020’s feverish heat came without the major El Niño event that boosted global temperatures to a new high in 2016, and thus the year provides an important marker of the power of the long-term warming trend driven by human activities that emit greenhouse gases. Manking simply needs to cut emissions!
3. Competing with 2016: Year 2020 was just 0.04 degree Fahrenheit behind 2016, according to NOAA (whose records go back 141 years). NASA found that 2020 was in a statistical tie with 2016. The variation between NASA and NOAA is partly because of the different ways each processes temperature data: NOAA does not extrapolate temperatures over the Arctic to make up for missing data there.
4. Siberian heat: One of 2020’s notable hotspots was Siberia, which was covered by a deep-red blotch on global temperature maps. The region has been exceptionally hot since the beginning of that year, contributing to January 2020 being the planet’s warmest on record. The Siberian town of Verkhoyansk reported 100.4 degrees F. If this figure is verified by the World Meteorological Organization, it would be the first time recorded temperatures above the Arctic Circle have surpassed 100 degrees F.
5. Worldwide crisis: Above-average temperatures were prevalent over large swaths of the globe. Europe and Asia had their hottest years on record, while South America and the Caribbean had their second-hottest, according to NOAA. The world’s oceans had their third warmest year. (In 2019 the main hotspot was elsewhere in the Arctic, in an area encompassing parts of Alaska, Canada and Greenland.)
6. Long term trend: Broad areas of warmth and more localized hotspots are both linked to the long-term warming trend. A recent analysis of the role of global warming in Siberia’s prolonged heat found that such extremes would happen around once every 80,000 years in the absence of anthropogenic warming.
7. La Nina: Since 2020’s ranking at the top of the charts happened without an El Niño event (that helped propel 2016), it is worrisome. During an El Niño a band of warm ocean water covers the tropical Pacific Ocean, which can raise global temperatures. But an El Niño is not necessary to take the lead: both 2014 and 2015 became the then-hottest year without one. Even years with a La Niña event (which tend to be cooler, because colder ocean waters spread across the tropical Pacific) are warmer than El Niño years of decades past.
8. Baseline shift: Due to global warming, the earth’s baseline temperature has shifted so much higher that 1998 is now being left in the dust (2016, which had a similarly strong El Niño, was 0.63 degree F hotter). It has now officially been knocked out of NOAA’s top 10. All of the 10 warmest years in its records have occurred since 2005—and the top seven have occurred since 2014—says Ahira Sánchez-Lugo, a climatologist at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.

Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

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