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1998 Was the Hottest Year on Record
NASA and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) both released data showing that 1998 was the hottest year on record, by a surprisingly large margin.
Start Date: 1/25/99
Depending on who you ask, the hottest year on record used to be 1995 or 1997; but everyone agrees 1998 is the new record-holder, and by a big margin. By NASA's reckoning, 1995 held the previous mark, a global annual average of 58.154 degrees Fahrenheit. NASA says 1998 averaged out at 58.496 degrees F., a very big one-year jump.
"It is really quite extraordinary. We've got a record and it's one of the largest increases that we've ever seen in one year," said D. James Baker, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). By NOAA's reckoning, the year 1997 was the previous winner, but they've recently changed the way they record their data.
In any case, it's getting harder and harder for anyone to deny the idea of global climate change. Naysayers continue to argue that the succession of warm years is within normal variation. But Baker, for one, says that's no longer tenable. He also says that human activity must be recognized as a component in the warming.
"One has to say we're seeing a combination of natural phenomena and a very strong indication of human effects here. We're starting to get out of the range of normal climatic variability," Baker says. "We've got 20 years in a row with annual global surface temperatures above the long-term average."
Although a strong El Nino effect in the Pacific Ocean was a big factor in North America's record high temperatures, particularly during the first half of 1998, the scientists emphasized that nearly all parts of the planet experienced record warmth in 1998. But the scientists also said they expect 1999 to be slightly cooler overall.
 Excelsior, Michael Lindemann's new novel (written under the pen name Michael Paul), depicts a wholly plausible near future in which human cloning is both widespread and widely abused; terrorists have access to target-specific biological weapons; recreational space travel is commonplace; and mounting pressures of global climate change, environmental decline, population growth and civil unrest inspire radical new approaches to urban security.
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