2018 was the fourth hottest year on record, according to two independent reports released today (Feb. 6) by NASA and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Last year was so hot that global land- and ocean-surface temperatures were 1.42 degrees Fahrenheit (0.79 degrees Celsius) above the 20th-century average, NOAA reported. Since 1880, when record-keeping began, only three years - 2016 (the highest, in part because of El Niño), 2015 and 2017 — were hotter.

“The key message is that the planet is warming,” Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, told reporters at a news conference. “And our understanding of why those trends are occurring is also very robust. It’s because of the greenhouse gases that we[‘ve] put into the atmosphere over the last 100 years.”

The trend isn’t a new one. Nine of the 10 warmest winters have happened since 2005, and five of the warmest years on record happened within the last five years, or from 2014 to 2018.

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