NASA Analysis Confirms a Year of Monthly Temperature Records

May 2024 was the warmest May on the books, marking a full year of record-high monthly temperatures, NASA scientists found. Average global temperatures for the past 12 months hit record highs for each respective month – an unprecedented streak – according to scientists from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

“It’s clear we are facing a climate crisis,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Communities across America—like Arizona, California, Nevada—and communities across the globe are feeling first-hand extreme heat in unprecedented numbers. NASA and the Biden-Harris Administration recognize the urgency of protecting our home planet. We are providing critical climate data to better lives and livelihoods, and benefit all humanity.”

The run of record temperatures fits within a long-term warming trend driven by human activity — primarily greenhouse gas emissions. The trend has become evident over the past four decades, with the last 10 consecutive years being the warmest 10 since record-keeping began in the late 19th century. Before this streak of 12 straight months of record temperatures, the second longest streak lasted for seven months between 2015 and 2016.

“It’s clear we are facing a climate crisis. Communities across America—like Arizona, California, Nevada—and communities across the globe are feeling first-hand extreme heat in unprecedented numbers.

Bill Nelson

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson

“We’re experiencing more hot days, more hot months, more hot years,” said Kate Calvin, NASA’s chief scientist and senior climate advisor. “We know that these increases in temperature are driven by our greenhouse gas emissions and are impacting people and ecosystems around the world.”

In NASA’s analysis, a temperature baseline is defined by several decades or more – typically 30 years. The average global temperature over the past 12 months was 2.34 degrees Fahrenheit (1.30 degrees Celsius) above the 20th century baseline (1951 to 1980). This is slightly over the 2.69 degree Fahrenheit (1.5 degree Celsius) level with respect to the late 19th century average.

To calculate Earth’s global temperature, NASA scientists gather data from tens of thousands of meteorological stations on land, plus thousands of instruments on ships and buoys on the ocean surface. This raw data is analyzed using methods that account for the varied spacing of temperature stations around the globe and for urban heating effects that could skew the calculations.

El Niño Subsiding, La Niña Arriving?

Phenomena such as El Niño and La Niña, which alternately warm and cool the tropical Pacific Ocean, can contribute a small amount of variability in global temperatures from year to year. The strong El Niño that began in spring 2023 helped stoke last year’s extreme summer and fall heat.

As of May 2024, scientists at the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Climate Prediction Center projected a 49% chance of La Niña developing between June and August, and a 69% chance of it developing between July and September. By cooling a large swath of the tropical Pacific, a La Niña event could partially suppress average global temperatures this year.

It’s hard to know whether 2024 will set another global heat record. Factors like volcanic eruptions and sun-blocking aerosol emissions can affect our climate in any given year. NASA missions are actively studying these influences, said Gavin Schmidt, director of GISS.

“There are open questions that can impact our predictions over the next few years and decades, and we’re in evidence-gathering mode,” Schmidt said. “This year may well end up setting another global temperature record. Right now, it’s in line to be close to 2023.”

Ocean Temperatures and Hurricanes

Scientists are watching to see how ocean temperatures may influence this year’s hurricane season. Temperatures remained high as the 2024 hurricane and typhoon seasons got underway. Across the Northern Hemisphere, ocean temperatures for the January-April period were 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit (1.18 degrees Celsius) above average, according to NOAA. Despite the waning El Niño, temperatures at the sea surface and at deeper depths are still above average in many places, said Josh Willis, an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

Willis cited rising carbon dioxide emissions as the main driver of ocean warming. As much as 90% of the excess atmospheric heat in recent decades has been absorbed by the ocean, with much of that heat stored near the water surface.  

“The ocean is the flywheel of our climate,” Willis said. “Since the ocean covers more than two-thirds of Earth, whatever sea surface temperatures are, the rest of the planet follows.”  

La Niña years also can contribute to more active Atlantic hurricane seasons. That’s because La Niña conditions weaken westerly winds high in the atmosphere near the Americas, over the Caribbean Sea and tropical Atlantic Ocean. Wind shear – abrupt changes in wind speed and direction – can cut hurricanes down before they grow. La Niña effectively lifts this brake, allowing tropical storms to form and intensify unimpeded.

NASA’s full dataset of global surface temperatures, as well as details of how NASA scientists conducted the analysis, are publicly available from GISS, a NASA laboratory managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. 

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From Psychology to Space: Alexandra Whitmire’s Journey and Impact in NASA’s Human Research Program

From navigating the depths of the human mind to exploring the vastness of space, Dr. Alexandra (Sandra) Whitmire helps lead research on the effects of prolonged isolation and confinement as NASA prepares to voyage to the Moon and eventually Mars. 

Whitmire is the lead scientist for the Human Factors and Behavioral Performance element (HFBP) within NASA’s Human Research Program, or HRP. HFBP selects, supports, and helps design studies for Johnson Space Center in Houston’s HERA (Human Exploration Research Analog), which conducts missions simulating isolation and confinement to further understand psychological effects on humans.  

These studies evaluate how crews work as a team and overcome stressors, bringing to light the potential effects of prolonged isolation on behavioral health. They also help reveal strategies for keeping crew members cohesive and engaged on long-duration missions. With greater workloads, higher stress, and more isolation anticipated in future spaceflight missions, especially with communication delays, this research is crucial. 

Strategies that support astronauts’ mental health have been around since the early days of spaceflight, and a strong team at NASA is in place to support the behavioral health of crews on the International Space Station. This team facilitates services such as communication with family, regular provision of crew care packages, and guidance on the optimal use of onboard methods that seek to counter adverse effects of spaceflight. For instance, lighting systems that simulate daytime and nighttime can help maintain circadian rhythms in the dark of deep space. HFBP learns from the astronauts’ current psychological support teams, while also planning a research strategy that aims to maintain this level of care in future missions beyond low Earth orbit.  

Initially working through KBR as a research coordinator, Whitmire played a key role in establishing NASA’s behavioral health and performance research group in 2006. Over time, this small group advocated for dedicated research facilities, leading to the creation of HERA in 2013 and a Behavioral Health and Performance Laboratory in 2016. HFBP also initiates and oversees studies in Antarctica, and created and managed studies previously conducted through the Scientific International Research In a Unique terrestrial Station, or SIRIUS, a series of international missions that were held inside a ground-based analog facility in Moscow, Russia. 

Whitmire’s role now involves managing projects aimed at mitigating risks for future spaceflight. She specializes in fatigue management, performance measurement, and strategies to counter behavioral changes that may result from spaceflight.  

“My journey to NASA was quite unexpected,” she said. “With a background in psychology and writing, I never imagined I’d find an opportunity working in space exploration.” 

Whitmire began her career supporting the state of Texas and MD Anderson Cancer Center on organizational development. She joined NASA’s HRP in 2006 as a research coordinator for the Human Health and Performance element. 

Whitmire completed her bachelor’s degree in English and Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. She then earned her master’s in psychology, with a focus on experimental psychology, from the University of Texas in San Antonio, and years later, while continuing her full-time work with KBR, she completed her doctorate in psychology from Capella University. 

Through HERA missions, HRP conducts studies that seek to evaluate how crew health and performance can be affected by stressors anticipated in future exploration missions.  One example study, led by Dr. Grace Douglas, a food technology scientist at Johnson, explored a restricted food system in which meals were replaced with compact bars. Douglas found that limited food options were associated with reduced eating and caloric intake, as well as decrements in mood, highlighting the importance of an acceptable food system for mental well-being on long duration missions.  

Another study led by Dr. Leslie DeChurch, a professor of Communication and Psychology from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., revealed that teams performed worse on a complex, conceptual task at the end of a mission compared to earlier on, highlighting the need to maintain team cohesion and performance over time. Still more studies seek to evaluate the effects of communications delays of up to five minutes each way between crew and HERA’s mission control, which sits just outside the analog environment.   

As NASA prepares to launch the first crewed Artemis missions, HRP’s behavioral health team is also incorporating studies to address Moon-specific challenges. The team is focused on the unique demands of lunar landings, such as high-tempo operations and seconds-long communication delays. The current goal is to increase the fidelity of HERA to future Artemis missions to ensure that more meaningful, operationally-relevant results emerge from future investigations.  

Through these studies, scientists learn valuable lessons about resilience and coping mechanisms that can benefit future space missions. Their findings emphasize the importance of maintaining social connections, adequate work-rest schedules, and opportunities for exercise to support mental health. Being intentional and reflective with gratitude and positive emotions has also shown significant value, Whitmire notes, adding that during her time at NASA, she has learned more about the importance of relationships, communication, and resolving problems together as a team. 

“Overall, our goal is to ensure that astronauts are well-prepared for and supported through the psychological demands of space exploration. We seek to apply these insights to improve mental health support for everyone,” Whitmire said. “All of us can learn from these crew members in their periods of isolation to get insights on how to live happier, healthier lives here on Earth.” 

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Sumer Loggins

55 Years Ago: Manned Orbiting Laboratory Cancellation

The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL), a joint classified project of the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), sought to establish a crewed platform in low Earth orbit to obtain high-resolution photographic imagery of America’s 1960s Cold War adversaries. Approved in 1965, the MOL Program envisioned a series of space stations launched from a new pad in California and placed in low polar Earth orbit. Two-man crews, launching and returning to Earth aboard modified Gemini-B capsules, would work aboard the stations for 30 days at a time. Although the Air Force selected 17 pilots and built prototype hardware, the program faced budget pressures and competition from rapidly advancing technologies in uncrewed reconnaissance capabilities, leading to its cancellation on June 10, 1969.

Left: Patch of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) Program. Middle: Illustration of the MOL as it would have appeared in orbit. Image credit: Courtesy National Air and Space Museum. Right: Space Launch Complex-6 under construction in 1966 at Vandenberg Air Force (now Space Force) Base in California. Image credit: Courtesy National Reconnaissance Office.

Announced by Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara in December 1963 and formally approved by President Lyndon B. Johnson in August 1965, the MOL Program envisioned a series of 60-foot-long space stations in low polar Earth orbit, occupied by 2-person crews for 30 days at a time, launching and returning to Earth aboard modified Gemini-B capsules. Externally similar to NASA’s Gemini spacecraft, the MOL version’s major modification involved a hatch cut into the heat shield that allowed the astronauts to internally access the laboratory located behind the spacecraft without the need for a spacewalk. While MOL astronauts would carry out a variety of experiments, a telescope with sophisticated imaging systems for military reconnaissance made up the primary payload in the laboratory. The imaging system, codenamed Dorian and carrying the Keyhole KH-10 designation, included a 72-inch diameter primary mirror designed to provide high resolution images of targets of military interest. To reach their polar orbits, MOLs would launch from Vandenberg Air Force (now Space Force) Base (AFB) in California. Construction of Space Launch Complex-6 (SLC-6) there began in March 1966 to accommodate the Titan-IIIM launch vehicle. The sensitive military nature of MOL resulted in its top-secret classification, not declassified by the NRO until October 2015.

The three selection groups of Manned Orbiting Laboratory pilots. Left:  Group 1 – Michael J. Adams, Albert H. Crews, John L. Finley, Richard E. Lawyer, Lachlan Macleay, Francis G. Neubeck, James M. Taylor, and Richard H. Truly. Middle: Group 2 – Robert L. Crippen, Robert F. Overmyer, Karol J. Bobko, C. Gordon Fullerton, and Henry W. Hartsfield. Right: Group 3 – Robert T. Herres, Robert H. Lawrence, Donald H. Peterson, and James A. Abrahamson. Image credits: Courtesy U.S. Air Force.

The USAF selected 17 pilots in three groups for the MOL program. The first group, selected on Nov. 12, 1965, consisted of eight pilots – Michael J. Adams, Albert H. Crews, John L. Finley, Richard E. Lawyer, Lachlan Macleay, Francis G. Neubeck, James M. Taylor, and Richard H. Truly. Adams retired from the MOL program in July 1966 to join the X-15 program. While making his seventh flight, he died in November 1967 when his aircraft crashed. Finley left the program in April 1968, returning to the U.S. Navy. The second group, selected on June 17, 1966, consisted of five pilots – Karol J. “Bo” Bobko, Robert L. Crippen, C. Gordon Fullerton, Henry W. Hartsfield, and Robert F. Overmyer. The third and final group of four pilots, chosen on June 30, 1967, comprised James A. Abrahamson, Robert T. Herres, Robert H. Lawrence, and Donald H. Peterson. Lawrence has the distinction as the first African American selected as an astronaut by any national space program. He died in the crash of an F-104 in December 1967.

Group photo of 14 of the 15 Manned Orbiting Laboratory pilots still in the program in early 1968 – John L. Finley, front row left, Richard E. Lawyer, James M. Taylor, Albert H. Crews, Francis G. Neubeck, and Richard H. Truly; Robert T. Herres, back row left, James W. Hartsfield, Robert F. Overmyer, C. Gordon Fullerton, Robert L. Crippen, Donald H. Peterson, Karol J. Bobko, and James A. Abrahamson. Michael J. Adams had left the program and died in an X-15 crash, Robert H. Lawrence had died in a F-104 crash, and Lachlan Macleay does not appear for unknown reasons.

The only space launch in the MOL program occurred on Nov. 3, 1966, when a Titan-IIIC rocket took off from Cape Canaveral Air Force (now Space Force) Station’s Launch Complex 40. The rocket carried a MOL mockup, without the KH-10 imaging payload, and a Gemini-B capsule refurbished after it flew NASA’s uncrewed Gemini 2 suborbital mission in January 1965. This marked the only reflight of an American spacecraft intended for human spaceflight until the advent of the space shuttle. The flight successfully demonstrated the hatch in the heat shield design during the capsule’s reentry after a 33-minute suborbital flight. Sailors aboard the U.S.S. La Salle (LPD-3) recovered the Gemini-B capsule near Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Ocean and returned it to the Air Force for postflight inspection. Visitors can view it on display at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Museum. The MOL mockup entered Earth orbit and released three satellites. It also carried a suite of 10 experiments called Manifold, ranging from cell growth studies to tests of new technologies. Although the experiments could have operated for 75 days, the MOL stopped transmitting after 30 days, and decayed from orbit Jan. 9, 1967.

Left: The only operational launch of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program, a Gemini-B capsule and a MOL mockup atop a Titan-IIIC rocket in 1966. Middle: The flown Gemini-B capsule on display at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Museum in Florida. Right: Former MOL and NASA astronaut Robert L. Crippen stands beside the only flown Gemini-B capsule – note the hatch in the heat shield at top.

By 1969, the MOL program ran several years behind schedule and significantly over budget, and other than the one test flight had not flown any actual hardware. Although no flight hardware yet existed, aside from the long lead time mirrors for the imaging system, plans in May 1969 called for four 30-day MOL missions at 6-month intervals starting in January 1972. However, technology for uncrewed military reconnaissance had advanced to the stage that the KH-10 system proposed for MOL had reached obsolescence. Following a review, the new administration of President Richard M. Nixon, faced with competing priorities for the federal budget, announced the cancellation of the MOL program on June 10, 1969. 

Left: Prototypes of elements of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) under construction. Middle: Medium fidelity mockup of the MOL crew cabin, with suited crew member and the narrow tunnel leading to the Gemini-B capsule. Right: Former MOL and NASA astronaut Robert L. Crippen stands next to the spacesuit developed for the MOL program. Image credits: Courtesy National Reconnaissance Office.

Although the sudden cancellation came as a shock to those working on the program, some of the personnel involved as well as some of the hardware developed for it, made their way into other agencies and projects. For example, the Air Force had developed a flexible spacesuit required by the MOL pilots to navigate through the narrow tunnel between the Gemini-B capsule and the laboratory – that technology transferred to NASA for future spacesuit development. The waste management system designed for use by MOL pilots flew aboard Skylab. The MOL laboratory simulator and the special computer to operate it also transferred to NASA. The technology developed for the acquisition and tracking system and the mission development simulator for the KH-10 imaging system found its way into NASA’s earth remote sensing program.

Official NASA photograph of the Group 7 astronauts – Karol J. Bobko, left, C. Gordon Fullerton, Henry W. Hartsfield, Robert L. Crippen, Donald H. Peterson, Richard H. Truly, and Robert F. Overmyer – transfers from the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program.

After the cancellation of the MOL program, NASA invited the younger (under 35) MOL pilots to join its astronaut corps. Bobko, Crippen, Fullerton, Hartsfield, Overmyer, Peterson, and Truly transferred to NASA on August 14, 1969, as the Group 7 astronaut class. In 1972, Crippen and Bobko participated in the 56-day ground-based Skylab Medical Experiment Altitude Test, a key activity that contributed to Skylab’s success. Although it took nearly 12 years for the first of the MOL transfers to make it to orbit, all of them went on to fly on the space shuttle in the 1980s, six of them as commanders. In an ironic twist, NASA assigned Crippen to command the first space shuttle polar orbiting mission (STS-62A) that would have launched from the SLC-6 pad at Vandenberg in 1986. But after the January 1986 Challenger accident, the Air Force reduced its reliance on the shuttle as a launch platform and cancelled the mission. Truly served as NASA administrator from 1989 to 1992 and Crippen as the director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida from 1992 to 1995. NASA hired Crews, not as an astronaut but as a pilot, and he stayed with the agency until 1994. Of the MOL astronauts that did not meet NASA’s age limit requirement, many went on to have stellar careers. Abrahamson joined NASA in 1981 as associate administrator for manned space flight, then went on to lead the Strategic Defense Initiative from 1984 to 1989. Herres served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1987 to 1990.

Left: Space shuttle Enterprise during fit checks at the SLC-6 launch facility at Vandenberg Air Force (now Space Force) Base in 1985. Middle: Athena rocket awaits launch on SLC-6 in 1997. Right: Delta-IV Heavy lifts off from SLC-6 in 2011.

Following cancellation of the MOL program, the Air Force mothballed the nearly completed SLC-6 at Vandenberg. In 1972, the Air Force and NASA began looking at SLC-6 as a pad to launch space shuttles with payloads requiring polar orbits, with the decision made in 1975. Workers began converting SLC-6 to launch the space shuttle in 1979. Although space shuttle Enterprise used SLC-6 for fit checks in 1985, the Challenger accident the following year caused the Air Force to cancel plans to use the space shuttle to launch polar orbiting satellites, and they once again mothballed the pad. Following modifications, small Athena rockets used the pad between 1995 and 1999, the first launches from the facility after 30 years of development and modifications. Another conversion begun in 1999 modified SLC-6 to launch Delta-IV and Delta-IV Heavy rockets starting in 2006, with the last flight in 2022. SpaceX leased SLC-6 in April 2023 to begin launches of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets in 2025.

Left: Schematic of the optical system of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL), including the 72-inch primary mirror at right. Image credit: courtesy: NRO. Right: The Multiple Mirror Telescope Observatory on Mount Hopkins, Arizona, in its original six-mirror configuration using mirrors from the MOL Program. Image credit: Courtesy Multiple Mirror Telescope.

The NRO transferred six surplus 72-inch mirrors from the cancelled KH-10 program to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for the Multiple-Mirror Telescope (MMT) it built in association with the University of Arizona, located on Mount Hopkins, Arizona. By combining the light of the six mirrors, they achieved an effective light collecting area of a single 177-inch telescope mirror. The MMT operated in this six-mirror configuration for nearly 20 years before a single 215-inch mirror replaced them.

Read Abrahamson’s, Bobko’s, Crew’s, Crippen’s, Fullerton’s, Hartsfield’s, Peterson’s, and Truly’s recollections of the MOL program in their oral history interviews with the JSC History Office. In 2019, the NRO held a panel discussion with MOL pilots Abrahamson, Bobko, Macleay, Crews, and Crippen, by then free to talk about their experiences during the now declassified program.

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