The year of devastating floods, freak snowstorms, forest fires and heatwaves that was 2010 has tied for the warmest on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced today.
The Earth's temperature was 0.62C (1.12F) above the 20th-century average of 13.9C(57F), tying 2005 for the warmest year since record-keeping began in 1880, the analysis by the National Climatic Data Centre showed.
It was the 34th consecutive year of above-average global temperatures – a trend NCDC scientists said provided further evidence of the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on the climate.
"There has been some notion that the climate stopped warming in 2005," said David Easterling, an NCDC climatologist. "This just lacks credibility."
This year's report was also bound to increase concerns about the effects of climate change in the future after last year's extreme weather.
In Pakistan, flooding caused by heavy monsoon rains left 20% of the country underwater at one point last July. Russia meanwhile sweltered under heatwaves and forest fires. The winter months of 2010 also brought extreme weather, with record cold and snowstorms in North America.
Each year since 2000 has ranked as one of the 15 warmest since records began. The last year with below-average temperatures occurred in 1976, NOAA said.
"To my mind, it reinforces the notion that we are seeing a signal for increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," Easterling said.
In another marker of climate change, Arctic sea ice cover was the third smallest since record-keeping began in 1979.
Last year was also the wettest year on record, and NOAA scientists are beginning to focus more intensively on the potential for extreme rainstorms because of the warming of the atmosphere.
Today's report from NOAA is the first of several on global temperatures in 2010, with Nasa, the UK Met Office and the UN World Meteorological Organisation due to release their own data later this month.