2014 could be the warmest year on record

September 2014 was the warmest September on record for the planet according to the September 2014 global climate summary released by National Climatic Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a United States agency.  

“If the surface temperature remains elevated at the same level for the remainder of the year, 2014 will set a new record for the warmest annual average temperature since records began in 1880,” NOAA Climate.gov, an organ of NOAA, writes in its news article of the report.

 

Photo credit: NOAA climate.gov

“The January-September period has already tied for the warmest on record: four out of the nine months so far this year were record warm, one was second warmest, another was third warmest, and two more were fourth warmest,” it reveals.

The other three months with record temperature were May, June and August.  

It however adds that, “scientists can’t know for certain how the final months of 2014 will play out in terms of temperature patterns, but there are good reasons to suspect this year may well set a new record for warmth.”

Already the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has reported in its annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, released in September that the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a new record high in 2013. This, according to the bulletin, was propelled by a surge in levels of carbon dioxide.

The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin showed that between 1990 and 2013 there was a 34% increase in radiative forcing – the warming effect on our climate – because of long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide.

“We know without any doubt that our climate is changing and our weather is becoming more extreme due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.

“The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin shows that, far from falling, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere actually increased last year at the fastest rate for nearly 30 years. We must reverse this trend by cutting emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases across the board,” he said. “We are running out of time.”

 The European Union on October 24 at its summit in Brussels agreed to cut by at least 40% by 2030.