Earth’s surface temperatures in 2015 were the warmest since modern-day record keeping began in 1880, two U.S. government agencies reported Wednesday.
Even without naturally occurring warming trends, such as El Nino, 2015 would have been hotter than 2014, also a record-setter, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told reporters during a conference call.
Most of the heating is due to the combined effects of deforestation with the burning of fossil fuels, leaving more heat-trapping carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, said Gavin Schmidt, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.