The year 2014 was the hottest since record-keeping began in 1880, according to independent reviews of temperature data released Friday by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Globally, land and ocean temperatures were 1.24°F (0.69°C) higher than the average for the 20th century—passing previous highs set in 2005 and 2010.

The announcement comes as international negotiators are still struggling to reach agreement to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions in the wake of increasingly alarming predictions from climate scientists around the world.

The warming last year broke regional records from Australia to Anchorage and from southern Europe to South America. Every continent on Earth had regions that broke high-temperature records.

But it was the ocean that saw the most