2015 is Hottest Year on Record for Second Successive Year

All three of the world’s major temperature estimate organisations have confirmed that 2015 was the hottest year since records began, cementing fears over climate change and underlining the need to act now. In January, the UK Met Office, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) all released their final data for the year which showed that the previous 12 months had seen an alarming rise in temperatures around the world.

The information was collected via independent methods, collating temperature measurements from all around the world (both on land and out at sea) which are taken at regular and frequent intervals throughout the day, every day. Though there are some discrepancies in the Polar Regions, where temperature data is less readily available, we have never had a better or more comprehensive weather monitoring infrastructure than today.

By the Numbers

When translated into cold, hard facts, the temperature data makes for some uncomfortable reading. Here’s an outline of the major figures that can be gleaned from the collated data:

• The average temperature all across the planet was 0.75°C higher than the total average of the years 1961-1990, breaking the record for the second successive year.
• 2014 had shown a 0.57°C hike, itself a record.
• 2016 is predicted to be even higher again, thus breaking the record for three years in a row for the very first time.
• 10 out of 12 months of the year were the hottest on record in 2015 for their respective calendar months.
• In the UK, December had the highest rainfall ever.
• 2015 was the first time that the global temperature had crept to 1°C above the pre-industrial average (for your information, experts have earmarked a hike of 2°C as the absolute limit of global warming to avoid catastrophe and would prefer to limit any rise to just 1.5°C).
• 15 of the 16 hottest years since records began have occurred in the last 15 years.

Too Little Too Late?

At the end of last year, world leaders met in Paris for the COP21 climate change summits, in a bid to thrash out an agreement of how best to halt the progress of global warming and keep any temperature fluctuations below dangerous levels. Although the agreement certainly represented a step in the right direction, there has been criticism from some quarters that the event was not specific or stringent enough in its plans to tackle the problem.

In this illuminating interview, Professor Andrew Pitman, who is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, a recipient of the NSW Scientist of the Year Award, several other accolades and a prominent authority on climate change, gives his opinions on just how successful COP21 really was.

For others, the new figures released by NASA, NOAA and the Met Office represent a clear indication that governments, corporations and individuals around the world need to sit up and take notice.

“This should put pressure on governments to urgently implement their commitments to act against climate change, and to increase their planned cuts of greenhouse gases,” explained Bob Ward to the Guardian, himself a scientist the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change. “The warming is already affecting the climate around the world, including dangerous shifts in extreme weather events. Those who claim that climate change is either not happening, or is not dangerous, have been conclusively proven wrong by the meteorological evidence around the world.”