MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

2005, the hottest year on record and more to come

The highest global surface temperature in more than a century of instrumental data was recorded in the 2005 calendar year according to a report from the United States Space Agency.

The five hottest years since instrumental records began in 1800s were 2005, 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004, said James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

"A surprising Arctic warm spell is responsible for a 2005 that was likely the warmest year since instrument recordings began in the late 1800s", added Hansen who nevertheless admitted that the analysis had to estimate temperatures in the Arctic from nearby weather stations because no direct data were available.

As a result, he said, "we couldn't say with 100 percent certainty that it's the warmest year, but I'm reasonably confident that it was". Hansen and other researchers wrote in the analysis that "the inclusion of estimated Arctic temperatures is the primary reason for our rank of 2005 as the warmest year."

The report did not break down Arctic temperatures but an earlier study found they are warming up twice as fast as other areas around the globe. The analysis follows a prediction the institute made in December that 2005 would be the warmest on record. Hansen noted that 2005 edged out the prior record year, 1998, without help of the "El Niño of the century" that pushed temperatures up in 1998. El Niños are ocean currents that can impact weather globally "Record warmth in 2005 is notable, because global temperature has not received any boost from a tropical El Niño", the report stated. "1998, on the contrary, was lifted 0.2°C above the trend line by El Niño".

Over the past 30 years, Earth has warmed a bit more than 1 degree Fahrenheit in total, making it about the warmest it's been in 10,000 years, Hansen said. He blamed a buildup of heat-trapping greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels.

Global warming is now 0.6°C in the past three decades and 0.8°C in the past century. It is no longer correct to say that "most global warming occurred before 1940", said Hansen who pointed that more specifically, there was slow global warming, with large fluctuations, over the century up to 1975 and subsequent rapid warming of almost 0.2°C per decade.

As to 2006 prospects the report suggests that the quasi-regularity of recent El Niños at intervals of about 4 years, --there was a weak El Niño in 2002?signals the likelihood of an El Niño in 2006 or at latest 2007. "In such a case the 2005 global temperature record will almost surely be broken".

According to the Goddard Institute report annual and seasonal temperature changes of the past 50 years show the largest warming have occurred in Alaska, Siberia and the Antarctic Peninsula, as well as in most ocean areas. "The remote location of most warming makes it clear that the warming is not a product of local urban influence", states the report.