2014 marked the hottest year on record, with the average global temperature on land and sea running 1.24 degrees Fahrenheit above other temperatures recorded in the 20th century.
The National Climatic Data Center said 2014 average global temperatures topped every year since recordkeeping began in 1880, including previous records in 2010 and 2005.
Breaking the data down further, the NCDC reported that the global average land temperatures in 2014 were fourth highest since 1880, while the average sea temperatures were the highest ever recorded.
"Much of the record warmth for the globe can be attributed to record warmth in the
global oceans," the NCDC said in its full report. "The annually-averaged temperature for ocean surfaces around the world was 0.57°C (1.03°F) higher than the 20th century average, easily breaking the previous records of 1998 and 2003 by 0.05°C (0.09°F)."
The Washington Post said Gavin Schmidt, NASA director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said the 2014 data fits in with expectations of a warming planet.
"If you’ve got a long-term warming trend, you’re going to get new records every so often — in fact, on a pretty regular basis," Schmidt told The Post. "This is what you’re expecting, and this is going to continue to happen because the underlying rate of global warming really hasn’t changed."
Such record-breaking warm temperatures don’t mean the globe didn’t face some extreme cold in 2014. The NCDC said Canada experienced its second-largest November snow cover ever in 2014, while most Americans are familiar with the high snow falls that blanketed Buffalo, New York.
"Recent polar sea ice extent trends continued in 2014," the NCDC reported. "The average annual sea ice extent in the Arctic was 10.99 million square miles, the sixth smallest annual value of the 36-year period of record. The annual Antarctic sea ice extent was record large for the second consecutive year, at 13.08 million square miles."
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