Publication Date January 16, 2015 | New York Times

2014 Breaks Heat Record, Challenging Global Warming Skeptics

Runners in Siberia, which experienced record heat in 2014. Credit Louise Murray/Robert Harding World Imagery, via Corbis
Runners in Siberia, which experienced record heat in 2014. Credit Louise Murray/Robert Harding World Imagery, via Corbis

Last year was the hottest on earth since record-keeping began in 1880, scientists reported on Friday, underscoring warnings about the risks of runaway greenhouse gas emissions and undermining claims by climate change contrarians that global warming had somehow stopped. Extreme heat blanketed Alaska and much of the western United States last year. Records were set across large areas of every inhabited continent. And the ocean surface was unusually warm virtually everywhere except near Antarctica, the scientists said, providing the energy that fueled damaging Pacific storms.