Zach Pilchen graduated from the George Washington University Law School with highest honors, achieving a master of laws in energy and environmental law. As a practicing attorney, Zach Pilchen continues to emphasize matters of environmentalism, climate change, and environmental law.
Global warming is a term used to describe the trend of increasing temperatures across the earth’s surface. The term can be misleading, however, as the planet’s increasingly warmer temperatures can result in a variety of weather disturbances, from more frequent storms of greater strength to declining temperatures in certain regions. That said, the average temperature of the earth’s oceans and land masses continues to rise.
According to the Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index, maintained by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the earth’s average temperature for the year 2016 was about 33.78 degrees Fahrenheit, an increase from the 2015 average of 33.56 degrees. The index clearly demonstrates an upward trend, with 2006’s average temperature standing at 32.1 degrees and the planet’s surface averaging a temperature of 31.64 in 1880. Of the 17 hottest years ever recorded by the NASA index, which extends back 136 years, 16 have occurred since 2001, with 2016 marking the third year in a row a new record was made. The complete chart and its supporting data can be viewed at www.climate.nasa.gov.
Global warming is a term used to describe the trend of increasing temperatures across the earth’s surface. The term can be misleading, however, as the planet’s increasingly warmer temperatures can result in a variety of weather disturbances, from more frequent storms of greater strength to declining temperatures in certain regions. That said, the average temperature of the earth’s oceans and land masses continues to rise.
According to the Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index, maintained by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the earth’s average temperature for the year 2016 was about 33.78 degrees Fahrenheit, an increase from the 2015 average of 33.56 degrees. The index clearly demonstrates an upward trend, with 2006’s average temperature standing at 32.1 degrees and the planet’s surface averaging a temperature of 31.64 in 1880. Of the 17 hottest years ever recorded by the NASA index, which extends back 136 years, 16 have occurred since 2001, with 2016 marking the third year in a row a new record was made. The complete chart and its supporting data can be viewed at www.climate.nasa.gov.