2016 ‘very likely’ to be the hottest year on record, U.N. agency declares

- Timed for the ongoing international climate meetings in Marrakech, Morocco, the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has affirmed what many scientists had already considered inevitable — 2016, the agency said, will “very likely” be the hottest year on record. That would mean that the last three years — 2014, 2015, and 2016 — have set ever more impressive temperature records in quick succession.

The agency was able to say as much, despite the year not even being over yet, due to the jaw-dropping heat seen throughout much of the year. Multiple months in 2016 set new monthly temperature records, buoyed by a very strong El Nino event.

Sixteen “of the 17 hottest years on record have been this century,” noted the agency.

Overall, the WMO said, 2016 was 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer on average than temperatures for the pre-industrial Earth. That’s a highly significant number, in that it puts the planet quite close to the 1.5 degree Celsius temperature threshold enshrined as an aspirational goal in the Paris climate agreement. Some scientists have said we could cross 1.5 degrees for good by 2030. (FullText)