Last year's global average temperature was the hottest on record, marking the third year in a row global heat records have been shattered, according to reports published Wednesday by two U.S. government agencies.
The agencies bolstered the scientific conclusion that our planet is getting warmer.
CLEAR TREND
Data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) showed that in 2016 the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.69 degrees Fahrenheit (0.94 Celsius) above the 20th century average of 57.0 degrees Fahrenheit (13.9 Celsius).
"This was the highest among all years in the 1880-2016 record, surpassing the previous record set last year by 0.07 degrees Fahrenheit (0.04 Celsius)," the NOAA report said.
"Since the start of the 21st century, the annual global temperature record has been broken five times (2005, 2010, 2014, 2015 and 2016)," it said.
In a separate analysis of global temperature data, scientists from the U.S. space agency NASA also found 2016 to be the warmest on record, a finding also confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization and other agencies.
Last year "is remarkably the third record year in a row in this series," said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, "We don't expect record years every year, but the ongoing long-term warming trend is clear."
According to NASA, most of the warming occurred in the past 35 years, with 16 of the 17 warmest years on record occurring since 2001.
PERFECT RECIPE
The announcements by NOAA and NASA are something that can be expected, since the first eight months of the year had record high temperatures for their respective months.
"That 2016 was the hottest year on record comes as no big surprise," said Professor Dave Reay of the University of Edinburgh. "The combination of a strong El Nino event with human-induced climate warming was the perfect recipe for another record-breaker."
A strong El Nino event, which warms the upper tropical Pacific Ocean, was in effect for most of 2015 and the first third of 2016, but experts believed that it only played a small role last year.
Deke Arndt, climate monitoring chief at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, told reporter on a conference call that last year's El Nino event may "have contributed a quarter to a third" of the warming, while Schmidt estimated about "10 percent."
The long-term warming trend means that 2017 will likely be another very warm year globally, despite the presence of "a very mild La Nina," which cools the upper tropical Pacific Ocean.
"It's still going to be a top five year in our analysis. I'm pretty confident about that," said Schmidt. "But it's unlikely to be another record year."
