lobally, 2012 was one of the warmest years on record, according to separate reports from NOAA and NASA.

NOAA's 2012 State of the Climate report, released Tuesday, concluded that last year was the 10th warmest since record keeping began in 1880.

According to NOAA, 2012 marked the 36th consecutive year with global average temperatures above last century's average. Every year of the 21st century thus far has been one of the top 14 warmest years in 133 years of recordkeeping.

James E. Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said during a Tuesday press call, "Each decade has been significantly warmer than the prior decade since the mid-1970s." He added, "We can predict with confidence that the next decade will be warmer than the last."

NOAA confirmed last week that 2012 was the warmest year on record for the contiguous U.S., based on records dating back to 1895. The year was one degree Fahrenheit warmer than the previous record holder, 1998. According to Climate Central, Jake Crouch, a climate scientist at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., said, "Climate change has had a role in this [record]."