Gain a global perspective on the US and go beyond with curated news and analysis from 600 journalists in 50+ countries covering politics, business, innovation, trends and more.</s>NASA has released a report that says globally, 2016 was the hottest year on record, for the third year in a row (Credit: NASA )

Another year, another broken temperature record. As early data predicted, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have now reported that globally, 2016 was the warmest year since records began in 1880. That puts us on a streak of three years in a row that have surpassed previous records, painting a worrying picture of a long-term warming trend.

Taking a global average of surface temperatures, 2016 was found to be 1.78º F (0.99º C) warmer than the mean figures from the middle of the 20th century. Overall, the planet has warmed by about 2º F (1.1º C) since 1880, and the 16 years we've had of the 21st century so far are all in the top 17 hottest years on record.

Along with the dubious honor of hottest year so far, 2016 took a hammer to plenty of individual records too, with eight of its 12 months breaking the previous records for hottest average temperature for each respective month. A weak La Niña weather pattern may have slightly cooled things down later in the year, but the months of October to December were still among the warmest known.

"2016 is remarkably the third record year in a row in this series," says Gavin Schmidt, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). "We don't expect record years every year, but the ongoing long-term warming trend is clear."

These records were set as a global average, which means that not every part of Earth would have experienced above-average temperatures for 2016. In the continental US, the annual mean temperature was the second warmest, while the Arctic was pummeled by a heatwave, resulting in record-low sea ice in the area. Variations like this may be responsible for skepticism of the kind that leads to Senators bringing snowballs onto the Senate floor.

This conclusion was reached by both NASA and NOAA independently, based on data gathered from 6,300 weather stations around the world, research stations in Antarctica and sea surface temperature observations from ships and buoys. From there, the two organizations use slightly different means of calculating their estimates, with NASA saying it's over 95 percent certain in claiming 2016 to be the warmest year on record.</s>World temperatures hit a record high for the third year in a row in 2016, creeping closer to a ceiling set for global warming with extremes including unprecedented heat in India and ice melt in the Arctic, US government agencies said on Wednesday.

The data, supported by findings from other organisations, was issued two days before the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, who questions whether climate change has a human cause.

Average surface temperatures over land and the oceans in 2016 were 0.94 degrees above the 20th-century average of 13.9 degrees, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

US space agency NASA reported almost identical data, and the UK Met Office and University of East Anglia, which also track global temperatures for the United Nations, said 2016 was the hottest year on record.

Temperatures, lifted both by man-made greenhouse gases and a natural El Nino event that released heat from the Pacific Ocean last year, beat the previous record in 2015, when 200 nations agreed a plan to limit global warming.

That peak had in turn eclipsed 2014.

“We don’t expect record years every year, but the ongoing long-term warming trend is clear,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Global temperature records date back to the 1880s. Temperatures are unlikely to set a new peak in 2017 after the El Nino faded, even as greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels keep building up in the atmosphere, led by China and the United States.

Piers Forster, climate expert at the University of Leeds, said this year was likely to be cooler.

“However, unless we have a major volcanic eruption, I expect the record to be broken again within a few years,” he said.

Among last year’s extreme weather events, wildfires in Alberta were the costliest natural disaster in Canada’s history while Phalodi in west India recorded a temperature of 51C (123.8?F) on May 19th, a national record.

North America also had its warmest year on record, the Great Barrier Reef off Australia suffered severe damage from rising temperatures, and sea ice in both the Arctic Ocean and around Antarctica is at record lows for mid-January.

At a conference in Paris in late 2015, governments agreed a plan to phase out fossil fuels this century and shift to renewable energies such as wind and solar power.

They agreed to limit warming to “well below” 2 degrees above pre-industrial times, while pursuing efforts for 1.5 degrees.

By that yardstick, the rise stood at about 1.1 degrees in 2016. “Long-term indicators of human-caused climate change reached new heights in 2016,” Petteri Taalaas, head of the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation said, referring to rising levels of carbon dioxide and methane.

Mr Trump, who has described climate change as a hoax, has threatened to cancel the Paris Agreement and shift to exploiting cheap domestic coal, oil and gas. At a meeting in Marrakesh days after Trump’s victory, however, almost 200 nations said it was an “urgent duty” to combat climate change.

“The hottest year on record is such a clear warning siren that even President-elect Trump cannot ignore,” said Mark Maslin, Professor of Climatology at University College London.</s>Temperatures on Earth were the warmest in 2016 since modern record-keeping began in 1880, according to independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, boosting the argument shared by many climate scientists that our planet is changing in significant ways.

The year 2016 was the third consecutive year to set a new record for global average surface temperatures, and far exceeded the temperature mark set in 2015, scientists said today.

Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), said in a statement that the consistent pattern of record-breaking temperatures is indicative of a "warming trend" taking place on Earth.

“2016 is remarkably the third record year in a row in this series,” Schmidt said. “We don't expect record years every year, but the ongoing long-term warming trend is clear.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.</s>WASHINGTON – Thanks to an assist from an El Nino event, Earth sizzled to a third-straight record hot year in 2016.

Two U.S. agencies and international weather groups reported Wednesday that last year was the warmest on record. They measure global temperatures in slightly different ways, and came up with a range of increases, from minuscule to what some American climate scientists described as substantial.

They’re “all singing the same song even if they are hitting different notes along the way. The pattern is very clear,” said Deke Arndt of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NOAA calculated that the average global temperature for 2016 was 58.69 degrees – beating the previous year by 0.07 degrees.

NASA’s figures, which include more of the Arctic, are higher at 0.22 degrees warmer than 2015. The Arctic “was enormously warm, like totally off the charts compared to everything else,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York, where the space agency monitors global temperatures.

The British meteorological office determined that 2016 barely beat 2015 by 0.018 degrees. The World Meteorological Organization and other monitoring groups agreed that 2016 was a record, with the international weather agency chief Petteri Taalas saying “temperatures only tell part of the story” of extreme warming.

The figures are based on ground-level temperatures. Satellite calculations also showed that it was the warmest year, Schmidt said.

“This is clearly a record,” he said. “We are now no longer only looking at something that only scientists can see, but is apparent to people in our daily lives.”

Temperature records go back to 1880. This is the fifth time in a dozen years that the globe has set a new annual heat record. Records were also set 2015, 2014, 2010 and 2005.

Arndt said the 0.07 difference for 2016 is actually one of the largest NOAA has seen between record years. What’s more important than any single record is the multi-decade “clear warming trend since the late 20th Century,” said Arndt, NOAA’s climate monitoring chief.

Schmidt said his calculations show most of the record heat was from heat-trapping gases from the burning of oil, coal and gas. Only about 12 percent was due to El Nino, which is a periodic warming of parts of the Pacific that change weather globally, he said. Arndt put the El Nino factor closer to a quarter or a third.</s>2016 Warmest Year on Record according to NASA, NOAA

Washington, D.C. – Earth’s 2016 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern record keeping began in 1880, according to independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Globally-averaged temperatures in 2016 were 1.78 degrees Fahrenheit (0.99 degrees Celsius) warmer than the mid-20th century mean. This makes 2016 the third year in a row to set a new record for global average surface temperatures.

The 2016 temperatures continue a long-term warming trend, according to analyses by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

Because weather station locations and measurement practices change over time, there are uncertainties in the interpretation of specific year-to-year global mean temperature differences. However, even taking this into account, NASA estimates 2016 was the warmest year with greater than 95 percent certainty.

“2016 is remarkably the third record year in a row in this series,” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt. “We don’t expect record years every year, but the ongoing long-term warming trend is clear.”

The planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 2.0 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere.

Most of the warming occurred in the past 35 years, with 16 of the 17 warmest years on record occurring since 2001. Not only was 2016 the warmest year on record, but eight of the 12 months that make up the year – from January through September, with the exception of June – were the warmest on record for those respective months. October, November, and December of 2016 were the second warmest of those months on record – in all three cases, behind records set in 2015.

Phenomena such as El Niño or La Niña, which warm or cool the upper tropical Pacific Ocean and cause corresponding variations in global wind and weather patterns, contribute to short-term variations in global average temperature. A warming El Niño event was in effect for most of 2015 and the first third of 2016.

Researchers estimate the direct impact of the natural El Niño warming in the tropical Pacific increased the annual global temperature anomaly for 2016 by 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit (0.12 degrees Celsius).

Weather dynamics often affect regional temperatures, so not every region on Earth experienced record average temperatures last year. For example, both NASA and NOAA found the 2016 annual mean temperature for the contiguous 48 United States was the second warmest on record.

In contrast, the Arctic experienced its warmest year ever, consistent with record low sea ice found in that region for most of the year.

NASA’s analyses incorporate surface temperature measurements from 6,300 weather stations, ship- and buoy-based observations of sea surface temperatures, and temperature measurements from Antarctic research stations. These raw measurements are analyzed using an algorithm that considers the varied spacing of temperature stations around the globe and urban heating effects that could skew the conclusions. The result of these calculations is an estimate of the global average temperature difference from a baseline period of 1951 to 1980.

GISS is a laboratory within the Earth Sciences Division of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The laboratory is affiliated with Columbia University’s Earth Institute and School of Engineering and Applied Science in New York.

NASA monitors Earth’s vital signs from land, air and space with a fleet of satellites, as well as airborne and ground-based observation campaigns. The agency develops new ways to observe and study Earth’s interconnected natural systems with long-term data records and computer analysis tools to better see how our planet is changing. NASA shares this unique knowledge with the global community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet.

The full 2016 surface temperature data set and the complete methodology used to make the temperature calculation are available at:

 http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp

The slides for the January 18th, news conference are available at:

 https://go.nasa.gov/2016climate

For more information about NASA’s Earth science programs, visit:

 http://www.nasa.gov/earth</s>WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The year 2016 has been confirmed as the hottest year on record, surpassing the exceptionally high temperatures of 2015, according to a consolidated analysis by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).



The globally averaged temperature in 2016 was about 1.1°C higher than the pre-industrial period. It was approximately 0.83° Celsius above the long term average (14°C) of the WMO 1961-1990 reference period, and about 0.07°C warmer than the previous record set in 2015.



WMO reached the conclusion using data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, the UK's Met Office and the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. WMO also draws on reanalysis data from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts and the Copernicus Climate Change Service.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX</s>Worldwide temperatures received a boost from a strong El Nino event, but experts say 2016 would have been record-breaking even without the Pacific warm water phenomenon.

The analysis is based on data from the UK's Met Office Hadley Centre, the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

WMO secretary general Petteri Taalas said: "2016 was an extreme year for the global climate and stands out as the hottest year on record, but temperatures only tell part of the story.

"Long-term indicators of human-caused climate change reached new heights in 2016.

"Carbon dioxide and methane concentrations surged to new records. “Both contribute to climate change.”

WWF UK said warming temperatures were causing the bleaching of coral reefs “at an alarming rate” and causing glaciers to melt.

“There are more and more danger signs that we are breaching the environmental limits of our planet,” said Tanya Steele, the organisation’s chief executive."</s>It's the third year in a row it's been the hottest year on record according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.

Each organization has different methods for calculating an average global temperature, but both came up with the same record-breaking results.

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NOAA found the Earth was 1.69 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than average while NASA found the global average was 1.78 degrees Fahrenheit warmer.

This finding wasn't much of a surprise to the scientific community since the first eight months of 2016 all broke monthly high temperature records and the remaining months were in the top five warmest.

All these individual broken records allowed the entire year to sail into the history books as the hottest since 1880 when record keeping began.

Since then, the surface of the planet has seen temperatures rise about 2 degrees Fahrenheit, and most of that warming has happened in the last few decades.

Sixteen of the 17 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001.

Follow Storm Shield Meteorologist Jason Meyers via the Storm Shield app on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Download the Storm Shield Weather Radio App for your iPhone or Android device and get severe weather alerts wherever you are. Named by Time.com one of the best weather apps for your iPhone.</s>GENEVA-Last year was Earth’s warmest on record, according to data compiled by the UN, confirming US findings that heat records were broken for a third year in 2016.

The study by the World Meteorological Organization found that global average temperatures were about 1.1 degree Celsius (1.98 Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial period, and about 0.07 degrees Celsius above the record set in 2015. “2016 was an extreme year for the global climae and stands out as the hottest year on record,” said Petteri Taalas, the agency’s secretary general.

“Long-term indicators of human-caused climate change reached new heights in 2016,” he said in a statement.

“We have also broken sea ice minimum records in the Arctic and Antarctic,” he said, adding that the Arctic was warming twice as fast as the global average.

He also said the analysis found that atmospheric concentrations of both carbon dioxide and methane reached record levels.

The agency based its findings on data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre, and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. According to Nasa figures, 2016 is now the warmest year in a record that dates back to 1880.

“2015 has been the warmest year on record up until now, so 2016 has just beaten that and and it’s beaten that by about 0.1- 0.12 of a degree Celsius, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but in terms of the year to year variations it’s actually huge,” Dr Gavin Schmidt from Nasa told BBC News. “And so this is a very clear record that we’re seeing, is driven mainly by changes in the tropical Pacific where we had an El Niño event that produced a lot of warmth. But we’ve also seen long term trends in warming mostly due to the increasing greenhouse gases.”

Other factors that have impacted temperatures in 2016 included unusual warmth in the Arctic. While the sea ice extent there last year didn’t break the record, the mercury stayed high and the smaller amount of ice now present in the region is at unprecedented levels for the time of year.

A number of meteorological agencies from around the world have released their figures today. They all suggest that warming in 2016 was a record that had an important contribution from El Niño.

The Met Office says it contributed about 0.2C to the annual average for 2016. However, researchers believe that while this is substantial, it is not the whole story.

“We understand the contribution El Niño makes fairly well and we’ve seen it many times,” said Prof Ellie Highwood from the University of Reading.

“But even if you take that contribution away, we would expect 2015 and 2016 to still be the warmest years we’ve seen, so a majority of it is coming from global warming and the greenhouse effect.”

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), which pulls together temperature data from a number of sources, agrees that 2016 broke the record by 0.07C.

Not all of the reports on temperature data in 2016 are clear that the warmest year record has been broken.

The Met Office says that 2016 was 0.77 above the long term rate, but with a plus or minus error margin of 0.1C, meaning that last year was at the very least, one of the two warmest years on record.

“The final figures confirm that 2016 was yet another extremely warm year,” said Peter Stott from the Met Office.

“The temperature for last year was very close to the year before, temperatures for 2016 exceeding those for 2015 by a small margin.”

Regardless of the small margins, when the new data on 2016 is included, 15 of the warmest 16 years on record have now occurred since 2001.

According to Noaa (the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the only year from the 20th century to break into the top 16 is 1998, and which ranks seventh warmest.

This prolonged period of warming was having significant impacts around the world.

“We have also broken sea ice minimum records in the Arctic and Antarctic,” said Petteri Taalas from the WMO.

“The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the global average. The persistent loss of sea-ice is driving weather, climate and ocean circulation patterns in other parts of the world. We also have to pay attention to the potential release of methane from melting permafrost,” he said.

Of great concern to scientists and politicians is the fact that the newly published temperature data shows the Earth is once again more than 1 degree warmer than pre-industrial times, and edging closer to the threshold of of 1.5C set under the Paris climate pact.

With the Trump administration about to take office in the US, there are concerns that political support for climate action might fade. This would be a big mistake according to scientists.

“Climate change is one of the great challenges of the twenty first century and shows no signs of slowing down,” said Prof Mark Maslin, from University College London.

“The decarbonisation of the global economy is the ultimate goal to prevent the worst effects of climate change. The hottest year on record is such a clear warning siren that even President-elect Trump cannot ignore.”

Researchers say that 2017 is unlikely to break the warming record but will be in the top five hottest years.
Global temperatures rose to the hottest level on record for 2016 for a third successive record according to NASA and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.