2010 has tied with 2005 as the hottest year on record, according to two new studies.
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On January 12 NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released their independent analyses of global surface temperature data for last year. Both found that 2010 was ever-so-slightly warmer than 2005. But the difference was not statistically large enough to declare 2010 the winner.
The warmth of 2010 is “not surprising, considering that global surface temperatures have been climbing,” says Deke Arndt, chief of the climate monitoring branch of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The last decade has been the warmest since record-keeping began in 1880.