Last year was one of the hottest years on record, according to a new government report confirming the Earth’s continued warming trend. Greenhouse gases were also at the highest level on record, reaching levels unseen for more than a half-century.
The annual State of the Climate report, led by scientists at the U.S Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information, reviews the world’s climate with contributions from more than 520 scientists in 60 countries.
“What came through this year was a real continuation of some of the patterns we have seen in recent decades where it is not just temperature. There are dozens of other diagnostics, and almost unanimously they are showing that we are in a warming world,” said Deke Arndt, climatologist for NOAA.
Though the report measures global trends, the local impact included above-average temperatures recorded over most of the Southeast during autumn. Those high temperatures along with several extremes helped make 2019 the hottest year on record in metro Atlanta since the first full year of data was collected in 1879.
“Under the background of climate change, the Southeast is undergoing and will undergo more extremes,” said state climatologist Bill Murphey. “You will get more alternating colder and hotter days and more wetter or drier conditions.” One example was the flash droughts last fall that left lakes and rivers across the state at below-average water levels and left some Georgia farmers with drought-related crop losses.
Last year, the average annual temperature globally was .79-1 degree Fahrenheit above the 1981-2010 average. Though 2016 remains the hottest year, the six warmest years on record have all occurred in the past six years beginning in 2014, said the report.
In addition, greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, hit peak levels in 2019, trapping climate-altering heat in the atmosphere. The increase in temperatures driven by greenhouse gases is almost entirely human-caused, Arndt said.
Fossil fuel consumption or production and deforestation are the largest human-caused factors resulting in increased greenhouse gases, followed to a lesser extent by some agricultural processes and the carbon-intensive production of concrete, Arndt said.
Only a record El Nino in 2016 outpaced the average sea surface temperature of 2019, and for the eighth consecutive year, sea levels continued to rise to a new record high. Melting glaciers and ice sheets and warming oceans have contributed to sea level rise of about 1.3 inches per decade, the report said.
The Georgia coast and the greater Atlantic coast have experienced rising sea levels that outpace the global average, Arndt said. Clear-sky flooding (flooding without rain) has become more frequent.
“We are seeing a dramatic increase in those events from once every few years to a few times a year,” he said.
The year also brought near-record warmth to the Arctic and Antarctic along with unprecedented activity around the Indian Ocean, resulting in heavy flooding in East Africa and intense drought and wildfires in Australia, according to the report.
“If we want to slow down the warming and all the consequences we see along with that, the options are strategies to reduce the rate at which we put carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” Arndt said.
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