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2014 hottest year on record according to NOAA, NASA


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An Indian commuter splashes water from a pipe onto his face to get respite from the heat at the railway station in Allahabad, India, in June 2014.

Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP/File

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But NASA, which calculates temperatures slightly differently, put 2014's average temperature at 58.42 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 1.22 degrees above their average, which they calculate for 1951-1980.



"The globe is warmer now than it has been in the last 100 years and more likely in at least 5,000 years," said climate scientist Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, who wasn't part of either research team. "Any wisps of doubt that human activities are at fault are now gone with the wind."


The heat was driven by record warmth in the world's oceans that didn't just break old marks: It shattered them. Record warmth spread across far eastern Russia, the western part of the United States, interior South America, much of Europe, northern Africa and parts of Australia. One of the few cooler spots was in the central and eastern United States.

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Climate scientists say one of the most significant parts of 2014's record is that it happened during a year where there was no El Nino weather oscillation. During an El Nino, when a specific area of the central Pacific warms unusually and influences weather worldwide, global temperatures tend to spike. Previous records, especially in 1998, happened during El Nino years.


"We are witnessing, before our eyes, the effect of human-caused climate change," said Pennsylvania State University professor Michael Mann. "It is exceptionally unlikely that we would be seeing a record year, during a record warming decade, during a multi-decadal period of warmth that appears to be unrivaled over at least the past millennium if it were not for the rising of planet-warming gases produced by fossil fuel burning."


Francis said with the margin of error it doesn't matter as much if 2014 was the warmest or second, third or sixth — what matters is that there is a "clear, consistent and incontrovertible" warming of Earth.