2020 was recorded to be among the hottest years after 2016 and 2019. Research says that 2020 might just be the beginning of hotter years ahead.
Various science research agencies have stated that 2020 was the hottest year. According to NASA, 2020 is at the same position as 2016 as far as temperature spike is concerned. A similar comment was also made by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Services recently. The World Meteorological Association (WMO), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and UK Met Office also released numbers marking 2020 as the third warmest year after 2016 and 2019.
All these agencies agree to the fact that 2020 followed the trend of increasing temperatures and is changing the perception of what was considered to be ‘normal’. All the warmest years that have been recorded so far have occurred after 2015. This decade was considered to be the hottest and the next one will be hotter considering the rate of climate change.
Every agency uses its own method to come to conclusions which is why there might be a slight difference in the outcomes. But 2016, 2019 and 2020 share ‘indistinguably small’ gaps in the category of the warmest years according to the WMO that collects research datas from regional agencies to make a decision.
A surprising fact about 2020 compared to previous years is that there was an extreme temperature rise even after the La Nina event which is supposed to have a cooling effect on earth. If the La Nina event would not have taken place at the end of the year, 2020 would have been recorded as the hottest year on earth so far.
Earth in 2020 was about 1.2 degree Celsius hotter than it was between 1850 and 1900, which was the preindustrial period and is considered to be the baseline. The Paris Climate Agreement aims to keep the warming below 2 degrees Celsius to avoid severe consequences of climate change.
