Capping off the warmest decade on record, the average global temperature in 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest year since reliable records began in 1880.
News & Features
Few winter storms and El Niño conditions brought severe drought conditions to the Hawaiian Islands this past year.
On Hawaii’s Big Island, prevailing Pacific trade winds from the northeast bring more rainfall to northern & eastern slopes, leading to dramatic differences in vegetation on different sides of the island.
In early June 2010, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center reported that the ocean and atmosphere conditions across the Pacific were favorable for the development of a La Niña episode.
The early wet season of 2010 was typical of La Niña, with rainfall in December 2010 between 200 and 400 percent above normal in much of Queensland, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
Mark Eakin, a coral reef specialist and Coordinator of NOAA’s Coral ReefWatch program, discusses coral bleaching in the Caribbean in 2010.
The average global surface temperature in October 2010 was 58.07°F (14.54°C), which is 0.97°F (0.54°C) above the historical average, according to the monthly assessment from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.
Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide in the air lead to more acidic seawater. More acidic water corrodes minerals that many marine creatures rely on to build their protective shells and skeletons.
How do warm waters in the Caribbean this year compare to conditions in 2005, when high ocean temperatures triggered the worst mass coral bleaching event ever seen in the region?
[From the archives] Facing the possibility of a massive coral bleaching event in the Caribbean Sea in late summer and early fall 2010, a USGS biologist based at U.S. Virgin Islands National Park hopes that the season won't have the same devastating outcome as a similar event in 2005.