Taking the Earth's Temperature

The research conducted by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies "emphasizes a broad study of global change, which is an interdisciplinary initiative addressing natural and man-made changes in our environment". Part of this involves recording the surface temperature of the planet's land and oceans and, as this chart shows, the trend over the last century has been one of increase.

Relative to the average temperature of the period 1951 to 1980, the global annual average in 1918 deviated by -0.30°C. One hundred years later, the anomaly is now +0.85°C - a difference of 1.15°C and a significant step towards what was recently referred to by UN Secretary General António Guterres as the 'point of no return' on climate change.