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2005 was warmest year on record:
NASA

Tue Jan 24, 2006 9:04 PM GMT

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By Deborah Zabarenko

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Last year was the warmest recorded on
Earth's surface, and it was unusually hot in the Arctic, U.S. space
agency NASA said on Tuesday.

All five of the hottest years since modern record-keeping began
in the 1890s occurred within the last decade, according to analysis
by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

In descending order, the years with the highest global average
annual temperatures were 2005, 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004, NASA said
in a statement.

"It's fair to say that it probably is the warmest since we have
modern meteorological records," said Drew Shindell of the NASA
institute in New York City.

"Using indirect measurements that go back farther, I think it's
even fair to say that it's the warmest in the last several thousand
years."

Some researchers had expected 1998 would be the hottest year on
record, notably because a strong El Nino -- a warm-water pattern in
the eastern Pacific -- boosted global temperatures.

But Shindell said last year was slightly warmer than 1998, even
without any extraordinary weather pattern. Temperatures in the
Arctic were unusually warm in 2005, NASA said.

"That very anomalously warm year (1998) has become the norm,"
Shindell said in a telephone interview.

"The rate of warming has been so rapid that this temperature that
we only got when we had a real strong El Nino now has become
something that we've gotten without any unusual worldwide weather
disturbance."

Over the past 30 years, Earth has warmed by 1.08 degrees F (0.6
degrees C), NASA said. Over the past 100 years, it has warmed by
1.44 degrees F (0.8 degrees C).

Shindell, in line with the view held by most scientists,
attributed the rise to emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon
dioxide, methane and ozone, with the burning of fossil fuels being
the primary source.

The 21st century could see global temperature increases of 6 to
10 degrees F (3 to 5 degrees C), Shindell said.

"That will really bring us up to the warmest temperatures the
world has experienced probably in the last million years," he
said.

To understand whether the Earth is cooling or warming, scientists
use data from weather stations on land, satellite measurements of
sea surface temperature since 1982, and data from ships for earlier
years.

More information and images are available online at:
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/2005_warmest.html.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

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