What winter? Earth just had its second-warmest December-February on record


Doyle Rice, USA TODAY


What winter?
The months of December, January and February – which meteorologists define as winter here in the Northern Hemisphere – were the second-warmest on record, federal scientists announced Friday.

Only the El Niño-fueled winter of 2015-16 was warmer, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. El Niño, a natural warming of sea water in the tropical Pacific Ocean, acts to boost global temperatures.


Global temperature records for the Earth go back to 1880.

Some of the most extreme warmth was in Russia, which smashed its record for warmest winter. Temperatures there were as much as a whopping 12 degrees above average, according to the country's weather service.

All the weird warmth messed with the region’s flora and fauna, as Gizmodo noted. Flowers started to bloom early in the winter, and some bears even awoke from hibernation at the Bolsherechensky Zoo, the Washington Post said.

In Europe, France had its warmest winter on record, while both Austria and the Netherlands had their second-warmest winter. Austria has a long history of keeping weather data: temperature records there go back to 1767, when Mozart was 11 years old.

"Record-warm December to February temperatures were observed across much of the western half of Russia and parts of Europe, eastern Asia, northern Australia and across the Atlantic, Indian and western Pacific oceans," NOAA said. "However, no land or ocean areas had record-cold December to February temperatures."

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Of course, in the Southern Hemisphere, it was summer, where the extreme warmth of Australia's second-warmest summer on record fueled devastating and deadly wildfires there.

The USA had its sixth-warmest winter on record. Every state except Alaska was warmer-than-average during the December – February months.

According to a statistical analysis done by NOAA scientists, the year 2020 is "very likely to rank among the five-warmest years on record," NOAA said.

NASA, which also tracks global temperatures, also said that the winter of 2019-20 was the second-warmest on record.

The warm winter comes on the heels of the second warmest year on record (2019) and the fact that the 2010s was the warmest decade ever recorded.

Thanks to human-caused global warming, "this period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization," according to the National Climate Assessment. "Human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century," the assessment said.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What winter? Earth just had its second-warmest December-February on record