2019 was second warmest year on record globally: analysis

Last year was the second warmest year ever recorded, and the last five years were the warmest five on record globally, according to an analysis released Wednesday.

According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), which is associated with the European Union, 2019 was the second warmest year across the globe, behind 2016.

The average temperature last year was almost 0.6 degrees celsius warmer than the 1981–2010 average, C3S found. The decade of 2010 to 2019 was also the warmest decade on record.

In 2019, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere rose by about 2.3 parts per million (plus or minus 0.8 parts per million).

“2019 has been another exceptionally warm year, in fact the second warmest globally in our dataset, with many of the individual months breaking records,” C3S chief Carlo Buontempo said in a statement.

“The past five years have been the five warmest on record; the last decade has been the warmest on record: These are unquestionably alarming signs,” said European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Director Jean-Noël Thépaut in the statement.