Image Credit: NASA/GISS

If 2009 left you a little hot under the collar, there was more to that feeling than job losses, bankruptcies and foreclosures.

Turns out it actually was pretty hot out there.

According to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2009 tied for the second-warmest year on record, trailing only 2005. In the southern hemisphere, ‘09 was the warmest year since the inception of record-keeping in 1880.

The NASA report confirmed predictions made in a study issued by the World Meteorological Association late last year.

In all, 2009 finished tied with five other years (four from the 2000s) for the second-warmest year ever. With so many of the hottest years in that decade, the period between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2009 became the warmest on record.

“The (yearly) ranking often misses the point,” Dr. James Hansen, GISS director, said in a press release. “There’s substantial year-to-year variability of global temperature caused by the tropical El Nino-La Nina cycle. When we average temperature over five or ten years to minimize that variability, we find global warming is continuing unabated.”

Rallying for a clean energy bill in Massachussetts, noted climatologist Dr. James Hansen told students this weekend that they must take the future in their hands.

Massachusetts Sleep Out (Photo: Ian McClellan)

“Our universe is incredibly unjust and inequitable for young people and future generations. ” Dr. Hansen said.  “Unless someone can change the direction, young people are really in trouble.  Our governments are not taking actions or planning actions that will achieve this.”

Dr. Hansen, known for sounding the alarm about climate change to Congress 20 years ago, appeared in Boston to support students and environmentalists who have been sleeping out to press Massachusetts lawmakers to commit to 100 percent clean energy for the state by 2020.

After sleeping out with the students encamped on Boston Common, Dr. Hansen joined them in lobbying lawmakers today. He testified before an informational hearing sponsored by the Senate Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change. (And being cited for trespassing by Boston police.)

Others testifying included:  Dominique McCadden, Northeastern University student and participant in The Leadership Campaign; the Rt. Rev. Roy Cederholm, Jr., Bishop Suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Mass.; Frank Ackerman, Senior Economist at the Stockholm Environment Institute.

Earlier at the Sunday rally, several other supporters spoke, including:

Marla Marcum of the Massachusetts Council of Churches; Linnea Palmer Paton, a student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Alex Propp, a student at Amherst College; Steve MacAusland, co-founder of the National Interfaith Power & Light Movement; Ken Ward of the JP Greenhouse; State Representative Will Brownsberger, vice-chair of House Global Warming and Climate Change Committee; and Craig Altemose, a Harvard graduate student and coordinator of The Leadership Campaign.

The Leadership Campaign, which is run by Students for a Just and Stable Future, is coordinating the protests.

Dr. James Hansen, the NASA scientist known for sounding an early alarm about climate change, will join student protesters at a “sleep out” in Boston this weekend.

The students, from Boston-area and other Massachusetts colleges, have been sleeping out on Boston Common and at various campuses to push the state to pass a law committing to clean energy. Their target goal: Have Massachusetts pledge to be using 100 percent clean energy by 2020.

They’ve asked Gov. Deval Patrick, already known for signing the Global Warming Solutions Act, to again put the state at the forefront of combatting climate change by introducing clean energy  legislation before the legislature adjourns later this month. The students have won a meeting with the governor on Nov. 17.

The sleep outs began two weeks ago, with the overnight campouts followed by lobbying with legislators on Monday mornings. Four Last week, police ticketed the campers for trespassing, student leaders said.

This weekend the group expects at least 100 student activists to meet with Dr. Hansen (whose Phd is in Physics from the University of Iowa) at a 4 p.m. Sunday rally, followed by the camp out. Dr. Hansen is scheduled to hold a press conference at 9:30 a.m. Monday morning (Nov. 9).

In June, Dr. Hansen, along with actress and environmental activists Daryl Hannah, was arrested for civil disobedience for blocking a road at a coal plant protest in West Virginia. The pair, along with several local residents, were protesting mountaintop removal.

Known for his testimony to Congress in 1988, alerting leaders to the dangers of greenhouse gases, Hansen has said that the world needs to move away from burning coal to create electricity.

The student sleep out was inspired by the idea that protesters would not rely on the “dirty energy” heating their homes and dorms until lawmakers pledged to move in a new direction.