CLIMATE: 2019 was hottest year on record, NASA and NOAA report

It's official.

NASA and NOAA report today that 2019 was Earth's hottest year in recorded history. Excerpt from the joint January 15, 2020 announcement:

Earth's global surface temperatures in 2019 ranked second-warmest since 1880, according to independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Global temperatures in 2019 were 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) warmer than the late 19th century, according to scientists at NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. 2019's temperatures were second only to those of 2016 and continued the planet'slong-term warming trend: the five warmest years on the instrumental record have been the five last years.

More from NASA and NOAA, and the climate science team at Goddard Space Flight Center:

According to independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Earth's global surface temperatures in 2019 were the second warmest since modern recordkeeping began in 1880.

Globally, 2019 temperatures were second only to those of 2016 and continued the planet's long-term warming trend: the past five years have been the warmest of the last 140 years.

This past year, they were 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (0.98 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 1951 to 1980 mean, according to scientists at NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

The decade that just ended is clearly the warmest decade on record, said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt. Every decade since the 1960s clearly has been warmer than the one before.

Since the 1880s, the average global surface temperature has risen and the average temperature is now more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit (a bit more than 1 degree Celsius) above that of the late 19th century.