NASA says the Earth's warming is now 'unprecedented'

Global warming is happening at a faster rate than anticipated.

(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Over the last century, temperatures have risen at a rate 10 times faster than the historical average, NASA scientists have found. Temperature reconstructions fom NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration revealed that, over the last 5,000 years, temperatures rose by about 4-7 degrees Celsius. But in the next century, NASA predicts the world will start warming at a rate "'at least' 20 times faster than the historical average," The Guardian reported.

NASA's Gavin Schmidt has lost confidence that temperature increases can remain below the 1.5C limit set just last year at the Paris climate accord. "In the last 30 years we've really moved into exceptional territory," Schmidt, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told The Guardian. "It's unprecedented in 1,000 years. There's no period that has the trend seen in the 20th century in terms of the inclination (of temperatures)."

And, Schmidt added, there's "no evidence it's going away and lots of reasons to think it's here to stay."