Planet Earth Warmer Than Normal In 1994

The planet got hot again in 1994, according to the National Weather Service’s annual report on global weather.

After a two-year cooling-off period attributed in part to the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, 1994 ended with global land and sea temperatures averaging 0.3 degrees above normal.

That made 1994 one of the three warmest years since global recordkeeping began in 1951. It was hotter in 1990 and 1991 and about the same in 1988.

The government’s “Climate Assessment for 1994” was released Tuesday. For the first time, it was published first on the Internet computer network. It is available on the Climate Analysis Center’s World Wide Web home page at http:/ /nic.fb4.noaa.gov.

Particles thrown into the stratosphere by the Mount Pinatubo eruption are believed to have shaded the Earth’s surface from some of the heating effects of the sun during 1992 and 1993. But by 1994, those “aerosols” had dispersed and returned to near-normal levels, the report said.

Global temperatures also were boosted by a return, during the second half of 1994, of a “warm episode” of the El Nino/Southern Oscillation - a periodic warming of ocean water in the tropical Pacific that can have dramatic effects on weather around the world.