According to NASA, 2014 was the hottest year recorded on earth since 1880 thanks to an El Nino phenomena and the fact that global warming has spread at an alarming rate.

An analysis by done NASA and scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), states that the majority of global warming occurring on our planet happened over the last 30 years.

“The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000,” the scientists say. “Since 1880, earth’s average surface temperature has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius), a trend that is largely driven by the increase in carbon dioxide and other human emissions into the planet’s atmosphere.”

NASA monitors the earth’s vital signs from land, air and space with a fleet of satellites and airborne and ground-based observation campaigns.

“The GISS analysis incorporates surface temperature measurements from 6,300 weather stations, ship- and buoy-based observations of sea surface temperatures, and temperature measurements from Antarctic research stations” the administration says.

“This raw data is analysed using an algorithm that takes into account the varied spacing of temperature stations around the globe and urban heating effects that could skew the calculation. The result is an estimate of the global average temperature difference from a baseline period of 1951 to 1980. NOAA scientists used much of the same raw temperature data, but a different baseline period. They also employ their own methods to estimate global temperatures.”

The video below will give you a pretty good picture of the five-year global temperature averages from 1880 to today, as estimated by NASA, as you see yellow and orange spreading and becoming darker over the measured period.

[Source and image – NASA]