Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Gavin Schmidt, said the trend will only continue.
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That was followed by the warmest fall on record in much of central Canada, as it finally caught up with the western half of the country.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA say that 2015 was by far the hottest year in 136 years of record keeping.
Last year was the hottest year on record, and 2016 looks to be even hotter.
Compared to the previous record year it was a quarter of a degree Fahrenheit, which may not sound like a lot, but usually when we set new records they’re incremental – hundredths of a degrees at a time.
2015 was a record-shattering year in many ways, one of which is the year’s jarring temperature as the hottest 365 days in historical record. This was also 0.90 degree Celsius (1.62 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the average 20century temperature.
For the year-to-date or January-November 2015 period, 1.57°F (0.87°C) was the reading for year-to-date temperature across ocean surfaces and global land, and this is above the 2014 record by 0.25°F (0.14°C) and highest for January-November in the 1880-2015 record. The Northern Hemisphere by itself experienced a 2.59° F rise in land temperatures over the 20 century average. NASA and NOAA confirmed the combination of global warming and a powerful El Niño made 2015 hottest since records began in 1880. Thanks to the ongoing and powerful El Niño, my region of the southern Rockies has been getting hammered with snow and frozen temperatures. The last time a global cold month record was set was December 1916 and the coldest year on record was 1911, according to NOAA.
“We would have likely had a record even without El Nino, but El Nino pushed it way over the top”, Karl told reporters.
“A massive ramp-up of renewable – and low-carbon – energy will be essential to stay within two degrees Celsius of warming and avoid new records being set”.
Scientists fear that Ireland will be hit with more extreme weather events, including increased rainfall and more storms, as climate change takes hold.
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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.
