Some people believe in global warming and others don’t, but there is no better fact check than the statistics of real life. According to Science Daily, 2020 was the warmest year on record in the modern human history, based on data from NASA.

NASA: 2020 was the hottest year on record

If we take temperatures in 1951-1980 as the baseline, in 2020 Earth’s climate on average warmed up by 1.84 degrees Fahrenheit (1.02 degrees Celsius). The data was analysed by scientists from NASA.

2016 was also a much warmer year than before, but 2020’s temperatures worldwide went even further up the scale. Altogether, the last 7 years had been the hottest on record, which, in the view of researchers, points out to a stable long-term trend.

Scientists believe that we are moving towards even hotter years, unless the current trend is broken through lessening the human impact on the environment.

Since the end of 19th century, temperatures around the globe had risen by over 2 degrees of Fahrenheit (1.02˚C).

The impact of warmer climate includes but not limited to: loss of ice in the sea and mountains, rise in sea levels, heat waves, loss of forests and animal habitats, and other long-term consequences that are hard to predict or correct.

The effects of warmer climate would call for planting different crops, tighter water restrictions, and dealing with consequences of extreme weather events such as floods and fires.

2020: Warmest or the second warmers year?

The analysis of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ranks 2020 as the second warmers year on records, with 2016 being #1.

The difference is caused by methodology used in the research, such as location of weather stations and accuracy of measurements.

Yearly variables

2016 had a small assistance from El Nino, a known cycle of heat exchange, giving it some extra boost.

2020 was in the cooling stage of El Nino, thus its temperatures give more concern.

Local variables

The amount of sunlight in the country could be affected by events caused by extreme weather itself. For instance, in Australia bushfires of 2019 caused large clouds of smoke that protected the earth massively from the direct sunlight and thus cooling the atmosphere.

In 2020, the effects of pandemics resulted in the lower levels of pollution and thus higher penetration of sunlight and warmer temperatures at the ground level in countries like China.

In general, some parts of the planet are heating up faster than others. Arctic suffers from the rising temperatures the most. For instance, in just ten year the iced area declined by 13% in the Arctic Sea. This reduces the reflection of the Sun and in its turn leads to higher amount of sunlight heating up the oceans.

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