2015: Hottest Year

Environment and Ecology Concept of Ecology

2015: Hottest Year

Scientists reported that 2015 was the hottest year in the historical record by far; breaking a mark set only the year before.
This report is confirmed by various agencies all around the world.
The American agencies released figures on Wednesday showing that 2015 was the warmest year in a global record that began, in their data, in 1880.
British scientists released figures showing 2015 as the warmest in a record dating to 1850.
Japan Meteorological Agency had already released preliminary results showing 2015 as the warmest year in a record beginning in 1891.
According to the figures from the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, in Brussels, the toll over the past two decades is approaching 140,000 people, with most of those deaths occurring during a European heat wave in 2003 and a Russian heat wave in 2010.
The strong El Niño has continued into 2016, raising the possibility that this year will, yet again, set a global temperature record. The El Niño pattern is also disturbing the circulation of the atmosphere, contributing to worldwide weather extremes that include a drought in southern Africa, threatening the food supply of millions.

Analysis:

El Niño weather pattern, one of the largest in a century, is releasing an immense amount of heat from the Pacific Ocean into the atmosphere. But the bulk of the record-setting heat, is a consequence of the long-term planetary warming caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.
A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor, and an intensification of rainstorms was one of the fundamental predictions made by climate scientists decades ago as a consequence of human emissions.
The intense warmth of 2015 contributed to a heat wave in India last spring that turns out to have been the second-worst in that country’s history, killing an estimated 2,500 people. The long-term global warming trend has exacted a severe toll from extreme heat, with eight of the world’s 10 deadliest heat waves occurring since 1997.
A major heat wave affected India in May and June 2015, with average maximum temperatures exceeded 42°C widely and 45°C in some areas. Heat waves affected Europe, northern Africa and the Middle East through the late spring and summer.
Significant warmer than average temperatures were recorded over the majority of observed land areas, especially western North America, large areas of South America, Africa and southern and eastern Eurasia.
The oceans have been absorbing more than 90 percent of the energy that has accumulated in the climate system from human emissions of greenhouse gases. In the first nine months of 2015, global ocean heat content reached record high levels.

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