2017 was second-warmest year on record NASA says

It may not seem possible with many parts of the U.S. in a deep freeze, but the globe is heating up.

The planet's long-term warming trend continued in 2017, according to separate analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NASA said 2017's global surface temperature was the second-warmest on record – just behind 2016 – while the NOAA said it was third-warmest. The agencies agree, though, that the five warmest years have all occurred since 2010. Records go back to 1880.

Recent years have been affected by El Niño and La Niña, which warm or cool the Pacific Ocean and create short-term temperature variations. But NASA said if the patterns were statistically removed from the data, 2017 would have been the warmest year on record.

“Despite colder than average temperatures in any one part of the world, temperatures over the planet as a whole continue the rapid warming trend we’ve seen over the last 40 years,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which conducted the analysis.

NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio

This map shows Earth’s average global temperature from 2013 to 2017, as compared to a baseline average from 1951 to 1980, according to an analysis by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Yellows, oranges, and reds show regions warmer than the baseline.

According to NASA, the planet's average surface temperature has increased about 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the last century, mostly driven by man-made emissions into the atmosphere. Globally averaged temperatures last year were 1.62 degrees warmed than the average from 1951 to 1980.

The difference may seem slight, but scientists say even minor changes in global temperature can have a major impact on the global climate and melting arctic ice can cause higher sea levels, impacting millions.

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