Heat record in 2020

The year 2020 was the warmest since the planet’s temperature has been regularly measured.

According to NASA calculations, last year surpassed the previous record, set in 2016, by less than a tenth of a degree Celsius. Last year was the warmest so far in Europe, according to data from the European Copernicus program.

But whether 2020 is the new bearer of this infamous record or not, we will surely remember it for its high temperatures, strong hurricanes and wildfires.

In 2020, there were many forest fires. The largest ones were in Australia and California.

Glaciers are shrinking, polar ice is melting. If this continues, polar bears will become extinct by the end of the century.

This data also confirms the worrying fact that our planet is warming more and more every year.

After 2014, we had seven record hot years, and the ten warmest years were in the last 15 years.

Over the last hundred years, the average temperature on Earth has risen by two degrees Celsius.

According to the meteorological services of the Environment Agency (Arso), 2020 was also above average in Slovenia. From the lowest average value in the period 1981-2010, the temperature was 1.3 degrees Celsius higher, and last year was among the five warmest since 1961.

We know that the huge greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere are to blame for this. The countries that are signatories to the Paris Agreement are thus strongly committed to reducing these.

Europe is set to become climate neutral by 2050. This means that plants, oceans and land would absorb as much carbon dioxide as humans release into the atmosphere. But we are very far from this goal.

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The original version of this article was published on January 22nd.

English translation courtesy of JL Flanner, Total Slovenia News, an English language website with news from and about Slovenia.