Global Temperature Trends, 1880-2005

Since November 1978, the Arctic atmosphere has warmed seven times faster than the average
warming trend over the southern two-thirds of the globe, based on data from NOAA satellites.

The warmest five years since the 1890s, when reliable record-keeping began:

1. 1998
2. 2005 tied with 2002
4. 2003
5. 2004


 

The minimum concentration of Arctic sea ice Summer 1979 compared to Summer 2003.

University of Colorado and NASA scientists announced that the
Arctic sea ice cap shrank in summer 2003 to 2 million square miles, 500,000 square miles
less than its average area between 1979 and 2000.

The new analysis comes as government and independent scientists are reporting other dramatic
signs of global warming, such as the record shrinkage of the Arctic sea ice cover and unprecedented
high ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico.  According to a new NASA study, Arctic perennial sea ice has been decreasing at a rate of 9 percent per decade since the 1970s. The changes in Arctic ice may be a harbinger of global climate change, says Josefino Comiso, researcher at Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland. In a recent Journal of Climate paper, Comiso notes that most of the recent global warming occurred over the last decade, with the largest temperature increase occurring over North America.
 

 
UNL
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
High Plains Regional Climate Center

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