Will 2020 Be The World’s Hottest Year On Record?

With the year well underway, it’s becoming clear that 2020 is very much likely to rank among the top 5 hottest years on record. But could it rank as the warmest year ever too? It seems so. 

“The year 2020 is almost certain to rank among the five warmest years on record,” NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) said in its monthly global climate report. The current record holder of the hottest year to date is 2016, however, it seems 2020 may surpass it. 

The first seven months of 2020 were the second-warmest on the books not far behind from 2016. September just ranked as the hottest on record globally, being 0.05°C warmer than last year. Not to mention, September 2020 also saw the second-lowest Arctic sea ice extent ever recorded.

As you can see, 2020 is clearly on track to becoming one of the hottest years on record. And this is all happening without the El Niño effect that surely had an impact on 2016 rankings. El Niño is when a band of warm ocean water covers the tropical Pacific Ocean, ultimately raising temperatures globally. 

Let’s not forget about all the wildfires that happened throughout 2020 in the U.S., Siberia, and Australia. Various studies have linked this heightened wildfire activity to human-caused climate change. The NCEI confirmed this stating that all these high temperatures we are seeing are “in part due to human-caused climate change.” This just shows, once again, how important it is that we look after our planet. No matter how 2020 ends up ranking, it is surely going to be one the warmest years ever observed.