Hottest year on record – NASA, NOAA

Besides, the five highest monthly departures from average for any month on record all occurred a year ago.

This was the announcement the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA jointly made on Tuesday, using their databases of global surface temperatures dating back to 1880. This was also 0.90 degree Celsius (1.62 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the average 20century temperature. “But with the record in now for 2015, 1988 is not even in the top 20 of warmest years”.

“Since 1997, which at the time was the warmest year on record, 16 of the subsequent 18 years have been warmer than that year”, said the NOAA report.

The study also looked into natural phenomena such as El Niño or La Niña, which warm or cool the tropical Pacific Ocean, and can contribute to short-term variations in global average temperature.

“2015 was remarkable even in the context of the ongoing El Niño”, said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt. “It’s not unprecedented to have two years in a row of record-breaking temperatures, but in our records, we’ve never had three years in a row”, Schmidt told Deborah Netburn at the Los Angeles Times.

2015 was the planet’s hottest year by the widest margin in 136 years of record keeping, U.S. government scientists have said. “Now we don’t expect it to last, but it will add to the global warming picture”, said Herbert.

Shattering the previous record, Earth’s surface temperatures rose by 0.23 degrees Fahrenheit (0.18 degrees Celsius) between 2014 and 2015.

For the continental United States, 2015 was the second warmest ever with a December that was the hottest and wettest on record.

The record warmth was reportedly widespread throughout the entire planet from Central America to northern South America, parts of Europe extending to Asia, a majority of the Indian Ocean and much more areas all around the world. Spain and Finland broke previous years, while data from Met Éireann shows that in Ireland, temperatures were below average.

Although there was some uncertainty about the findings because weather station locations and measurements change over time, NASA was 94 percent certain about 2015 being the warmest year.