Even if it wasn’t that apparent to everyone, it wasn’t only a few regions in the world that reported warmer temperatures than it was normally expected for February on average. However, recent studies on the matter have concluded in some shocking results that are downright puzzling. Scientists say that this past February was the hottest recorded in the past 135 years, at least according to NASA logs.
While that alone is slight worrying, the fact that concerned scientists even more was the very margin that this year’s temperatures have gone beyond the expected average of the last decades. The temperatures recorded this year were 2.43 degrees Fahrenheit or 1.35 degrees Celsius warmer than previously recorded averages between 1951 and 1980, and approximately 0.8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the previous world record that took place in February 1998.
With this record, we are now in the 10th month in a row that sets a record, and becomes the 2nd time this has happened in the history of the last century. The last time there were temperature records being set 10 months in a row occurred in 1944.
Last time February temperatures scored a record is believed to have been caused by the El Nino event, which was described as a prolonged warming in the Pacific Ocean, raising the water temperatures slightly through the phenomenon known as ‘southern oscillation’. With higher water temperatures, global temperatures are bound to rise as well.
This time around, however, El Nino is nowhere present, so the culprit has been narrowed down to one remaining possible suspect: the high and still increasing levels of carbon dioxide found in the Earth’s atmosphere. Carbon dioxide emissions are known to have drastically changed a number of factors that slowly led to the climate change we are dealing with in the present.
These shocking results that NASA is forwarding come with a certain degree of urgency for something to be done regarding greenhouse gas emissions. Last year in December, 195 nations’ representatives met in Paris and agreed to start efforts of cutting down gas emissions to a net 0 by the year 2100; something that is hoped to be achieved through switching out fossil fuels as a primary resource for solar and wind power. However, the change is easier said than done, and seeing the rapid pace at which carbon dioxide emissions seem to affect our climate, scientists urge authorities to act faster.
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