2015 was Earth’s hottest in recorded history

Past year was the Earth’s warmest since record-keeping began in 1880, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA said Wednesday. If temperatures in 2016 set new records, it will be the first time ever that temperature records are broken three years in a row.

NASA and NOAA maintain long-term temperature records based on measurements from thousands of weather stations, ship- and buoy-based observations of sea surface temperatures, and temperature measurements from Antarctic research stations.

Both reports said including 2015, 15 of the 16 warmest years on record have occurred during the 21st century, with the exception of 1998, which now tied with 2009 as the sixth warmest year on record.

Since 1880, the Earth’s average surface temperature has risen by one full degree Centigrade (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit). For example, NASA and NOAA found that the 2015 annual mean temperature for the contiguous 48 United States was the second warmest on record.

“2015 was remarkable even in the context of the ongoing El Niño”, said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

2015 swiped the warmest-year-in-history title from 2014, but it might not keep the record for long. “It has now been 31 years since there was a month cooler than the 20th-century average”. “The factors causing this trend are continuing to accelerate”, Schmidt said, adding that there’s “no evidence that the long-term trend has paused, slowed, or hiatused anytime in the last few decades”.

2015 was an year of extremes. NOAA also corroborated this data by NASA. “It’s happening because the dominant force is carbon dioxide” from burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.

Because of the strong El Niño influence at the beginning of this year, “2016 is expected to be an exceptionally warm year and perhaps even another record”, he told reporters.

When temperatures are averaged at a global scale, the differences between years are measured in fractions of a degree.

Regions of eastern and southern Africa experienced more blistering heat than ever, as did large parts of the northeastern and equatorial Pacific boosted by the El Nino weather phenomenon.

“We likely would have had a record without El Nio – but El Nio pushed it way over the top”, Karl said.

In the backdrop of the Paris climate change summit, it is to be noted that the 2 degree limit on increasing temperature set by the summit has already been halfway reached. “And it’s going to be very hard for that not to continue into at least the first part of next year because, in particular, the ocean temperatures are so warm”, Karl explained.