The map shows temperature changes for the last decade--January
2000 to December 2009--relative to the 1951-1980 mean. Warmer
areas are in red, cooler areas in blue. The largest temperature
increases occurred in the Arctic and a portion of Antarctica.
(Credit: NASA) From Science Daily: ScienceDaily (Jan. 22, 2010)
— A new analysis of global surface temperatures by NASA
scientists finds the past year was tied for the second warmest
since 1880. In the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest
year on record. Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade
because of a strong La Nina that cooled the tropical Pacific
Ocean, 2009 saw a return to a near-record global temperatures as
the La Nina diminished, according to the new analysis by NASA's
Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The past
year was a small fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the
warmest on record, putting 2009 in a virtual tie with a cluster
of other years --1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007 -- for the
second warmest on record