NOAA: 2019 Was Second-Hottest Year On Record

The New York Times reports:

Last year was the second-hottest on record, government researchers confirmed on Wednesday in analyses of temperature data from thousands of observing stations around the world. They said that 2019 was only slightly cooler than 2016 and the end of what was the warmest decade yet.

The independent analyses by researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration showed that global average surface temperatures last year were nearly 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the average from 1951 to 1980.

Temperatures in 2019 were only a small fraction of a degree Celsius lower than in 2016, a year when a strong El Niño pumped a lot of heat from the Pacific Ocean into the atmosphere.