2020 May Be The Hottest Year On Record. Here's The Damage It Did

"With just a few weeks left, 2020 is in a dead-heat tie for the hottest year on record. But whether it claims the top spot misses the point, climate scientists say. There is no shortage of disquieting statistics about what is happening to the Earth."

"The hottest decade on record is coming to a close, with the last five years being the hottest since 1880. 2020 is just two-hundredths of a degree cooler than 2016, the hottest year ever recorded. The Earth is nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer now than it was in the 20th century, and greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are still rising."

"The future will be even hotter, although humans, through the choices governments, corporations and individuals make, will decide exactly how much."

"That means more years like 2020, with increasingly powerful hurricanes, more intense wildfires, less ice and longer heat waves. The average yearly number of $1 billion-dollar disasters in the U.S. has quadrupled in the last three decades. As of October 2020, there had been 16 climate-driven disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damage each."