131 Years of Global Warming in 30 Seconds

By Michael Mountain, May 30, 2012

1880 was the year that scientists call the beginning of the “modern record.” Note how temperatures accelerate in the late 1970s. That’s when greenhouse gas emissions from energy production increased worldwide. Also, the new clean air laws reduced pollutants that, while making the air cleaner, had also had a cooling effect on the climate and were hiding the real effect of greenhouse gas emissions.

As NASA notes: “in this animation, reds indicate temperatures higher than the average during a baseline period of 1951-1980, while blues indicate lower temperatures than the baseline average.”