“The hottest year on record”.
This is becoming a joke, right?
Practically every year is the hottest on record now. It’s kind of lost significance, when it’s generally a good bet next year will be hotter.
- 2010
- 2014
- 2015 / 2022
- 2016
- 2017
- 2018 / 2021
- 2019
- 2020
- 2023
- 2024 (so far)
- 2025 (probably)
Edited for clarity.
Citation
It makes sense to say “the hottest year on record” if “practically every year is the hottest on record now” and you’re talking about the most recent year.
Does it make more or less sense than “Another year of record breaking heat”?
“Hottest year on record” is like a child stopping on each step of a staircase saying, “I’ve never been this high!” It’s correct, but doesn’t mean much in context, and gets old real quick.
“If I take one more step, this’ll be the farthest from home I’ve ever been.”
Though unlike the hypothetical child or Samwise Gamgee, what we’re doing is going to create suffering for very large numbers of people. It’s probably also a reliable source of clicks for online media organizations.
Everything I come across says that 2023 was the hottest year on record so far, but I don’t know the source of this info and I’ve never seen the list you provided.
Yeah the person above you had a slightly old list. 2023 smashed all previous records and was number one. Well until 2024 it was number one I guess.
https://www.noaa.gov/news/2023-was-worlds-warmest-year-on-record-by-far
I edited the list trying to make it more clear.
The point is, most years since 2014 have been “The hottest year on record.” It’s kind of lost significance as as an outlier, when it’s generally a good bet next year will be hotter.
@Steve It does sound geeky, but yes, it is technically correct to say about a year that is the hottest year on record.
And the fact you pointed that every single year becomes the hottest year on record makes it even more dangerous and shows that we need to take proper measures.
Constant headlines about “the hottest ever” are getting stale. Takes the meaning out hearing it over and over and over.
Sounds like mom, “it’s the hottest/coldest day of the summer/winter!” Yeah mom, it’s the hottest or coldest day many, many times a year.
I’m also tired of, “smashed records!”, when it was 1 or 2 degrees over the record.
Don’t know how else to report it, but people are letting these headlines go in one ear and out the other. There’s no real impact to the reader.