AP, WASHINGTONWhile last year was the fourth-warmest year on record, British meteorologists are predicting the next five years would be much hotter, maybe even record-breaking. NASA and NOAA climate scientists said that even though last year was a tad cooler than the three previous years, that was mostly due to random weather variations. The US temperature last year was the 14th-warmest on average, NOAA climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt said. There were 14 weather and climate disasters that cost more than US$1 billion, for a total of US$91 billion, Arndt said. The damage included Hurricane Michael’s US$25 billion tally and US$24 billion each from Hurricane Florence and the western wildfires.

Source: Taipei Times February 07, 2019 15:56 UTC