This video on how Earth's climate has changed since 1950 will shock you

“The debate is settled. Climate change is a fact,” President Barack Obama had said at the annual State of the Union Speech in Washington on Tuesday. If what he says still leaves you in doubt, this 15-second video - showing drastic changes since 1950 - may just convince you.

Released by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the video shows how the Earth continues to experience temperatures which are warmer than those measured several decades ago. The dramatic animation shows a map of the world juxtaposed with data from 1,000 meteorological stations across the globe analysed by scientists over the past 63 years.

Adding last year’s figures, data has shown that 2013 has tied with 2009 and 2006 to be the seventh warmest year since 1880. Further, NASA states that except for 1998, the 10 warmest years in available data have all been post 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the warmest years on record.

What makes it worse? The average global temperature has never dipped (cooler that average) for the last 38 years.  In 2013, the average temperature was 14.6 Celsius, which is 0.6 C warmer than the mid-20th century baseline. The average global temperature has risen about 0.8 C since 1880, according to the new analysis by NASA. According to GISS data, the continuous climb in greenhouse gas levels are driving a long-term rise in global temperatures.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 285 parts per million in 1880. By 1960, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, measured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationwas about 315 parts per million. This measurement peaked last year and now stands at more than 400 parts per million.

“It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century… Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions,” a 2013 report  by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had said.