2014 was warmest year on record, US says

Last year set a new high for global average temperatures since detailed record-keeping began in 1880, US government scientists said today.

Two separate, independent analyses by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) found the average global temperature across the land and seas last year was 1.24 degrees Fahrenheit (0.69 degrees Celsius) above the 20th century average.

The earth's average surface temperature has increased by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880, the agencies said. The majority of that warming has occurred in the last 30 years because of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

"This is the latest in a series of warm years, in a series of warm decades," NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies director Gavin Schmidt said. "While the ranking of individual years can be affected by chaotic weather patterns, the long-term trends are attributable to drivers of climate change that right now are dominated by human emissions of greenhouse gases."

Last year was the warmest on record even in the the absence of a significant El Nino event, a Pacific ocean current and weather pattern that generally adds more heat into the atmosphere, the agencies said. Many of the prior records were set during years with strong El Nino systems. The previous warmest year was 2010, following a moderate El Nino in 2009-10.

The vast majority of the world was significantly warmer than the 20th century average according the NASA analysis, though North America east of the Rocky Mountains stood out as having a significantly cooler year because of unusually cold winter weather early in 2014.

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