Weather in 2019 created a series of records and not in a good way. The past year was the second warmest year on record, a touch behind the hottest year, 2016.

According to independent analysis by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), earth's global surface temperatures in 2019 were the second warmest since modern record-keeping began in 1880. While the European Union&rsquos Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announced that 2019 was the fifth in a series of exceptionally warm years and the second warmest year globally ever recorded.

Globally, 2019 temperatures reiterated the planet's long-term warming trend. The past five years have been the warmest of the last 140 years, according to NASA. Sans the technical studies, common people too felt the heat, with soaring temperatures, wildfires and increased precipitation. The wild fire that is currently ravaging Australia is also believed to be

India too did not veer from the global trend. According to India Meteorological Department, average temperature over India during the year 2019 was above normal. During the year, annual mean surface air temperature, averaged over the country, was 0.360C above (1981-2010 period) average. The past year was the seventh warmest on record since nation-wide records commenced in 1901.

&ldquoWe crossed over into more than two degrees Fahrenheit warming territory in 2015 and we are unlikely to go back. This shows that what&rsquos happening is persistent, not a fluke due to some weather phenomenon we know that the long-term trends are being driven by the increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,&rdquo said NASA&rsquos Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Director, Gavin Schmidt.

Scientists conducting research into the effects of global warming have warned that unless we find ways to cut human emissions of heat trapping gases on a war footing, the earth will see more of devastating wildfires and floods on the one hand and acute food shortages on the other.