Given that the strong El Nino, which contributed toward making 2015 a year of extremes – from floods in the U.K.to record-breaking temperatures over the Christmas holiday in the USA – has continued into 2016, this year could set another global temperature record, with anthropogenic climate change spurring the vast majority of global warming and El Nino putting “the icing on the cake”.
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Not to be upstaged by the previous year, 2015 was globally the warmest year since records began in 1880, according to NASA and NOAA.
NOAA says 2015’s temperature was 58.62 degrees Fahrenheit (14.79 degrees Celsius), passing 2014 by a record margin of 0.29 degrees. For context, the only other time that a new record has been greater than the old record by this large a margin was in 1998, officials said. But many believe that warmer oceans are fueling the phenomenon, and the data speaks for itself.
Temperatures got a slight boost from El Nino in the final three months of the year – the Northeast in particular experienced exceptionally mild weather from the warming pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which some evidence suggests may be tied to global warming.
Annual temperatures in the Northeast, including Central New York, were constrained by the record cold February, which was 16.7 degrees below normal.
Every month except January and April broke monthly temperature records – the first time 10 months each set new temperature highs, Karl said. “Today’s announcement not only underscores how critical NASA’s Earth observation program is, it is also a key data point that should make policy makers stand up and take notice – now is the time to act on our climate”, he said.
Both NOAA and NASA have declared 2015 to be the warmest year, and December the warmest month, in recorded history-and both attribute the rising temperatures to human activity.
“Even coming off of 2014 being the hottest year, it was apparent early on that 2015 would be even hotter”, said Dave Rood, professor of climate and space sciences and engineering.
“What we will see is more and clearer impacts as we warm”, said Schmidt.
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The study will raise fresh concerns about the accelerating pace of global warming. 1988 was also a record year.
