Global climate - Overview [in "State of the Climate" in 2018]

Another year passes, another warm year. In fact, 2018 was the fourth warmest year after 2016, 2015, and 2017, based on four independently constructed datasets measuring global land and ocean surface temperatures since global records began in the mid-to-late 1800s. Every year since the start of the twenty-first century has been warmer than the 1981–2010 global average. The warmth was also observed in the atmosphere, with annual tropospheric temperatures in 2018 third to seventh highest on record, depending on the dataset, and the stratospheric temperatures (12–25 km) were approximately fifth lowest.JRC.D.6-Knowledge for Sustainable Development and Food Securit