NASA scientists say 2000 to 2009 warmest decade recorded

Global surface temperature analysis indicates that 2009 was the warmest year on record in the Southern Hemisphere, reinforcing that January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade ever documented. Data from 1880 to the present point to a clear warming trend, despite a leveling off of temperature between the 1940s and 1970s.

On average, global temperatures increased by about 1.5 degrees F since 1880 when scientific instruments were designed to monitor precise temperatures. These findings are critical as James Hansen, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) director, states, “There’s a contradiction between the results shown here and popular perceptions about climate trends. In the last decade, global warming has not stopped.”

This decade-long conclusion holds despite 2008 being identified as the coldest of the past ten years, because of a cooling La Nina event in the Pacific Ocean.

Full story: Science Daily