Last year was the hottest year in NASA’s temperature record, GISTEMP. Overall, the 2023 temperature anomaly was 1.17 C (2.1 F) – meaning temperatures last this year were that much higher than the 1951-1980 average.

NASA’s record calculates temperature anomalies, rather than absolute temperatures, to account for imprecision in measurements worldwide. Our record is calculated from millions of measurements from thousands of weather stations, ships and ocean buoys, and Antarctic research stations.

While it would be great to have the same exact thermometer all over the world processing the data in the same exact way, we don’t. Instead we focus on how much warmer or colder the temperatures are in each place based on their own scales.

Plus, since we’re comparing temperatures all around the globe, it wouldn’t make sense to compare temperatures in sunny Bermuda to the cold of Greenland and average them together. Instead, we compare the change in temperatures in Bermuda to the change in temperatures in Greenland, which allows us to track how temperatures are changing worldwide.

NASA’s record is one of many kept by other organizations in the U.S. and globally. @NOAA also found that 2023 was the hottest on record. Despite small differences in data collection and processing, these global records all agree: Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate.

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