NASA and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration labeled 2014 as the hottest year on record Friday.
The two organizations studied two separate analyses of weather records dating back to the 1880s, according to The Washington Post. Due to the steady warming of the oceans, average temperatures surpassed the records set in 2005 and 2010. NASA scientists said the 10 hottest years have all come since 1997.
A recent Pew Research poll found that only 61 percent of Americans believe that mankind has created global warming, even though the scientific community agrees that there is no debate about it, CBS Detroit reported. Henry Pollack, professor emeritus of geophysics at the University of Michigan, said he has a theory of why Americans reject the concept. Americans receive a lot of propaganda from the oil industry against it, Pollack said.
However, there remains time to cut back on carbon emissions and slow the speed of global warming, Pollack said. Europe has already found cleaner energy sources and changed policy to curb carbon emissions.
NASA reported that the Earth's temperature has risen by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880. It is mainly driven by the increase in carbon dioxide and other human emissions into Earth's atmosphere.
The western United States experienced severe droughts and heat waves, while glaciers and Arctic ice sheets continue to retreat, according to The Washington Post. Droughts threatened drinking-water supplies across large swaths of Brazil and Australia. The thawing Arctic tundra opened up sinkholes in parts of Siberia and northern Canada. In a rare exception to the ongoing warming, the eastern United States experienced cooler temperatures due to a dip in the Jet Stream that spent waves of Arctic air southward.
What surprises scientists the most is that the record was set in a year that did not see an El Nino, the warm-weather pattern associated with high ocean temperatures in the east-central Pacific Ocean.
