According NASA 2012 was the ninth-hottest year ever on record and some experts believe that 2013 will be even hotter. The winter was unusually warm in most parts of the world, then there was a cooling period, and according to some meteorologists, the summer will be extremely hot.
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said 2013 was the ninth-warmest year since the first records back in 1880. According to a study by James E. Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the most extreme temperatures were in the Arctic and the middle of North America. In fact, extreme heats have become common in various parts of the world, including Moscow and Northern Europe. Another report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ranked 2012 10th of the hottest years. According to NOAA, last year was the hottest in U.S. records since their beginning in 1985.
NOAA also said that all 12 years to date of the 21st century are among the 14 warmest years in the world history, and only one year – 1998, was warmer than 2012. According to data by the Environmental Research Letters, global temperatures have shown a warming trend of 0.16 C per decade for the past 30 years. Hansen predicts that the next decade is going to be warmer than this one. And this summer is likely to record the highest temperatures so far. Although many people argue that there is no such thing as global warming, scientists say that there is no point denying it. If we compare extreme seasons now and 50 years ago, we will see that unusually warm seasons appear much more frequently than they did before.
Global warming theorists warn that while extreme weather outbreaks have always occurred naturally, the global climate system is warmer and wetter than it was half a century ago. At the same time, a large part of the world is still doing nothing on climate change. Although there are local and global programs that focus on renewable energy and energy efficiency, global emissions are still going up. There may be some positive initiatives, but there is still much countries can do, and they should do it quickly, say ecologists.
