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2005 will be the warmest year

A weak El Nino and human-made greenhouse gases could make 2005 the warmest year since records started being kept in the late 1800s, NASA scientists said this week.

Due to carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas, Earth’s surface now absorbs more of the sun’s energy than gets reflected back to space.

That extra energy, together with a weak El Nino, is expected to make 2005 warmer than 2003 and 2004 and perhaps even warmer than 1998, which had stood out as far hotter than any year in the preceding century, NASA said in a statement.

The warmest year on record was 1998, with 2002 and 2003 coming in second and third, respectively. Last year was the the fourth-warmest recorded, with a global mean temperature of 57 degrees Fahrenheit (14 Celsius), which was about 1.5 degrees warmer than the middle of the century, NASA scientist Drew Shindell said in an interview.

posted by: kyawoo at 21:29 | link | comments |
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