How hot was it? Last year was the hottest year on record, according to NASA's top world temperature taker.
The globe's average temperature for 1995 was an estimated 59.8 degrees, barely edging out 1990 and about 0.8 degrees above the 1950-1980 average. That's according to James E. Hansen, writing in the June 15 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.It was Hansen who first brought the threat of global warming to national attention, telling a congressional committee in 1988 that he was "99 percent sure" that greenhouse warming was under way.
Now, he says, temperatures are running a little lower this year thanks to a slight chilling of the water in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
"But," he added in an interview this past week, "over the next few years I would, with a pretty high degree of confidence, expect the global temperatures to exceed even the 1995 level."
Some researchers, however, wonder whether the globe really has begun to overheat.