2020 On Track to be Hottest Year on Record

It is highly likely that 2020 will be the warmest year for the Earth’s surface since records began in the mid-1800s.

The first nine months of 2020 were extremely warm according to records from six different research groups that report global surface temperature records: NASA; NOAA; Met Office Hadley Centre/UEA; Berkeley Earth; Cowtan and Way; and Copernicus/ECMWF.

The year-to-date (YTD) average global temperature in 2020, so far, is 1.84 Fahrenheit (1.02 Celsius) above the 20th-century average, which is only 0.07 of a degree F (0.04 of a degree C) shy of the record set for the same YTD in 2016, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

In 2020, January, April, May, June, July, and September all saw record temperatures in at least one of the global surface temperature datasets. Each month of the year ranged from the fourth warmest on record to the second warmest at least one dataset.

For example, the average global temperature in September was 1.75 Fahrenheit (0.97 Celsius) above the 20th-century average which surpasses the average global temperatures for both September 2015 and 2016 by 0.04 of a degree F (0.02 of a degree C), according to NOAA. Seven-warmest Septembers have occurred in the last seven years.

Climate models can provide estimates of future warming based on future emissions, greenhouse gas concentrations, and other climate-influencing factors.

According to Carbon Brief’s analysis, the likelihood that 2020 will be the warmest year on record has declined in the NASA and Copernicus datasets, but has risen in the NOAA and Berkeley datasets. NOAA’s own analysis predicts a 99.9 percent chance that 2020 will be among the top five warmest years and a 64.7 percent chance that it will be the warmest year on record.

The data also show record concentrations of major greenhouse gases – CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide – in the atmosphere, Carbon Brief reported. Higher emissions are causing warming and warming years which cause greater climate-related disasters.

Record heat is just one sign of a changing climate. Recent mega-wildfires, hurricanes, and floods have all been driven by Climate change. More extreme weather events will become more frequent and intense, scientists warn.

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