Record! 2014 was Earth's warmest year

A section of Lake Oroville is seen nearly dry on August 19, 2014, in Oroville, Calif. California was one part of the world that was record warm in 2014.(Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images)

2014 was the planet's warmest year on record, federal scientists announced Friday.

"Humans are literally cooking their planet," said Jonathan Overpeck, an atmospheric scientist from the University of Arizona.

The global temperature from 2014 broke the previous record warmest years of 2005 and 2010 since record-keeping began in 1880.

Two separate data sets of global temperature — from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — confirmed the record. Another data set released last week by the Japan Meteorological Agency also found 2014 was the planet's warmest.

The average temperature for 2014 was 58.24 degrees globally, 1.24 degrees above the 20th-century average, NOAA said.

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"It just shows that human emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, are taking over the Earth's climate system," Overpeck said."The data are clear. The Earth is warming and humans are causing the bulk of this warming."

Record warmth was seen around the world in 2014, including Far East Russia into western Alaska, the western U.S., parts of interior South America most of Europe stretching into northern Africa, along with parts of eastern and western coastal Australia.

"A record warm year, especially absent (the warming effects of) a strong El Nino, is mostly a reminder that the long-term trend for Earth's temperature is up, up, up," said Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University climate scientist."The dice are definitely loaded in favor of progressively hotter years and the odds will increase as long as atmospheric greenhouse gases increase."

The planet has not seen a month with below-average temperatures for any month since February 1985,said Radley Horton, a scientist from Columbia University.

"What we have known for decades is that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations — due to human activities — have stacked the deck dramatically towards more record warm years, and fewer record cold years," Horton said.

The effects of global warming are already showing through faster rates of sea-level rise, accelerated melting of land-based ice sheets, rapid loss of Arctic sea ice, more frequent coastal flooding and more frequent and intense heat waves, Horton said.

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