2014 was the warmest year since 1880, when the record keeping started, according to two analyses conducted by NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists.

“2014’s record-breaking warmth continues a long-term trend of a warming climate – Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) reports online – The global average temperature has increased about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius) since 1880, with most of that warming occurring during the last three to four decades”.

“This is the latest in a series of warm years, in a series of warm decades.” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt.

In more details, 2014 surpassed 2010 as the warmest year, 9 of the 10 warmest years now on record all occurred during the 21st century, and the 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1997.

Graph by NOAA Climate.gov, based on data from the National Climatic Data Center- http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/ytd/12/1880-2014

Global Highlights from the NOAA website

• The year 2014 was the warmest year across global land and ocean surfaces since records began in 1880. The annually-averaged temperature was 0.69°C (1.24°F) above the 20^th century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F), easily breaking the previous records of 2005 and 2010 by 0.04°C (0.07°F). This also marks the 38^th consecutive year (since 1977) that the yearly global temperature was above average. Including 2014, 9 of the 10 warmest years in the 135-year period of record have occurred in the 21^st century. 1998 currently ranks as the fourth warmest year on record.
• The 2014 global average ocean temperature was also record high, at 0.57°C (1.03°F) above the 20^th century average of 16.1°C (60.9°F), breaking the previous records of 1998 and 2003 by 0.05°C (0.09°F). Notably, ENSO-neutral conditions were present during all of 2014.
• The 2014 global average land surface temperature was 1.00°C (1.80°F) above the 20^th century average of 8.5°C (47.3°F), the fourth highest annual value on record.
• Precipitation measured at land-based stations around the globe was near average on balance for 2014, at 0.52 mm below the long-term average. However, as is typical, precipitation varied greatly from region to region. This is the third consecutive year with near-average global precipitation at land-based stations.

NOOA: 2014 Global Significant Weather and Climate Events – http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/extremes/201413.gif

NOAA: January–December 2014 Blended Land and Sea Surface Temperature Percentiles – http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-percentile-mntp/201401-201412.gif

Resources:

• Global Analysis – Annual 2014, NOOA data and information from the NOAA official web site
• Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies video, interview and animated line graph from Goddard media Studios
• The WSJ and the NYT reported the news