2005 to be warmest yet?

Greenhouse gases that accelerate global warming could make 2005 the warmest year since records started being kept in the late 1800s, says NASA.

“There has been a strong warming trend over the past 30 years, a trend that has been shown to be due primarily to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” said James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The warmest year on record was 1998, with 2002 and 2003 coming in second and third. Last year was the fourth-warmest recorded, with a global mean temperature of 14°C.

Average temperatures taken from land and surfaces of the oceans show 2004 was .48 C. above the average temperature recorded from 1951 to 1980.