nbcnews.com - Last year was the hottest year ever recorded, marking the third year in a row that average global temperatures hit record-setting levels, NASA and NOAA said Wednesday Jan 18.
"That's pretty unusual, but what's going on is this a long-term underlying trend that's driven mainly by greenhouse gases and the fact that carbon dioxide is continuing to increase," NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director Gavin Schmidt told NBC News.
The average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 58.69 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.69 degrees above the 20th century average, NOAA said Wednesday morning.
NASA and NOAA, which separately analyze global temperature data, have both found that global temperatures surpassed records for the past three years. Schmidt described the trend as remarkable.
"This is not what we want, we don't want to be breaking new records every year," Schmidt said. He added that while scientists did not expect every year going forward to be record-breaking, the news was indicative of global warming patterns over the past few decades.
The announcement comes on the same day as Senate confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump's pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt.
As attorney general, Pruitt fought hard against environmental regulations imposed by the EPA and even sued the very agency he has been asked to lead. Those actions, and his ties to the fossil fuel industry, have environmental activists and some scientists sounding the alarm.
During his hearing, Pruitt questioned mankind's impact on climate change, but said his personal opinion was "immaterial" to his heading the regulatory agency.
"I believe the ability to measure with precision the degree of human activities impact on the climate is subject to more debate on whether the climate is changing or whether human activity is contributing to it," the Oklahoma attorney general said.
NASA said in its findings on Wednesday that the planet's average temperature has risen about 2.0 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.1 degrees Celsius, since the late 19th century, a change "driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere."
Some scientists noted that global temperatures were coming "dangerously close" to levels agreed to in the Paris climate change agreement, which more than 190 countries signed in 2015 in an attempt to stave off the worsening impacts of climate change.
The climate deal aims to keep the rise in global temperatures "well below" 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and attempt to limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees. (ontinueReading
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