The year 2019 was the second-hottest on record and closed out Earth’s warmest recorded decade yet, government researchers confirmed Wednesday. Researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration independently analyzed temperature data from thousands of observing stations around the globe and said that temperatures last year were just a fraction of a degree Celsius lower than 2016, the hottest year on record. Global average surface temperatures in 2019 were nearly 1 degree Celsius higher than the average from 1951 to 1980, according to the researchers. The warming trends “are clear and unequivocal,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “The surface temperature record tells us that the last decade was more than 1 degree Celsius higher than the late 19th century and we know that this has been driven by human activities.” The five warmest years on record occurred in the last five years, the NASA and NOAA research shows. Some of the most extreme effects of warming temperatures showed in Australia and Alaska.