Greta Thunberg Calls For Action After NASA Declare 2020 Hottest Year On Record

Greta Thunberg has called for action after NASA declared 2020 the hottest year on record.

The 18-year-old environmental activist said the world is facing a 'climate emergency' and she called for people to 'be the change' and 'spread awareness'.

Analysis by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York found that 2020 edged out 2016 as the hottest year ever by less than a tenth of a degree, which falls within the study's margin for error and therefore effectively renders the years the joint-hottest on record.

NASA said 2020's globally averaged temperature was 1.84 degrees Fahrenheit (1.02 degrees Celsius) warmer than the baseline 1951-1980 mean.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) and the Met Office both put 2020 in a close second place behind 2016, due to slightly different calculation methods.

GISS Director Gavin Schmidt said: "The last seven years have been the warmest seven years on record, typifying the ongoing and dramatic warming trend.

"Whether one year is a record or not is not really that important - the important things are long-term trends. With these trends, and as the human impact on the climate increases, we have to expect that records will continue to be broken."

PA

While the idea of slightly warmer weather might sound quite agreeable to a lot of us, it can have a disastrous impact on our planet.

Sea ice levels in the Arctic are the second-lowest they've been since satellite observations began in 1979, increasing the risk of flooding in coastal areas; and this is just one of the countless dangers posed by climate change.

Speaking after November was declared the hottest November ever, Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus Climate Change Service (CS3), said: "These records are consistent with the long-term warming trend of the global climate.

"All policy-makers who prioritise mitigating climate risks, should see these records as alarm bells and consider more seriously than ever how to best comply with the international commitments set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement."

The Paris Agreement's central aim is to unify nations in a global effort to keep the temperature rise this century well below 2°C more than pre-industrial levels, with an aim of keeping the increase under 1.5°C.

Donald Trump announced in 2017 that the US would withdraw from the agreement, but Joe Biden has now said the country will re-join after he takes office on Wednesday (20 January).

Topics: Environment, Greta Thunberg, World News, climate change

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey