A worrisome report confirms Earth is hot and getting hotter

Cover for the State of the Climate in 2015 report-august2016

Cover for the State of the Climate in 2015 report (NOAA)

The annual State of the Climate (SoC) report published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on 2 August 2016, has confirmed that 2015 surpassed 2014 as the warmest year on record since at least the mid-to-late 19th century.

Last year’s record heat resulted from a combination of long-term global warming and one of the strongest El Niño experienced since at least 1950.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2015 was the warmest year since modern record-keeping began in 1880, according to a new analysis by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The record-breaking year continues a long-term warming trend — 15 of the 16 warmest years on record have now occurred since 2001. Credits: Scientific Visualization Studio/Goddard Space Flight Center

2015 was the warmest year since modern record-keeping began in 1880, according to a new analysis by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The record-breaking year continues a long-term warming trend — 15 of the 16 warmest years on record have now occurred since 2001. Credits: Scientific Visualization Studio/Goddard Space Flight Center

Notable findings from the report include:

  • Greenhouse gases were the highest on record. Major greenhouse gas concentrations, including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide, rose to new record high values during 2015.
  • Global surface temperature was the highest on record. Aided by the strong El Niño, the 2015 annual global surface temperature was 0.42°–0.46°C above the 1981–2010 average, surpassing the previous record set in 2014.
  • Sea surface temperature was the highest on record. The globally averaged sea surface temperature was 0.33°–0.39°C above average, breaking the previous mark set in 2014.
  • Global upper ocean heat content highest on record. Upper ocean heat content exceeded the record set in 2014, reflecting the continuing accumulation of heat in the ocean’s top layers.
  • Global sea level rose to a new record high in 2015. It measured about 70 mm higher than that observed in 1993, when satellite record-keeping for global sea level rise began.
  • Tropical cyclones were well above average, overall. There were 101 tropical cyclones total across all ocean basins in 2015, well above the 1981-2010 average of 82 storms.
  • The Arctic continued to warm; sea ice extent remained low. The Arctic land surface temperature in 2015 was 1.2°C above the 1981-2010 average, tying 2007 and 2011 as the highest on record. The maximum Arctic sea ice extent reached in February 2015 was the smallest in the 37-year satellite record, while the minimum sea ice extent that September was the fourth lowest on record.
geo distribution climate anomalies_BAMS

Geographical distribution of notable climate anomalies and events occurring around the world in 2015. (NOAA)

 

“… this year’s SoC has an emphasis on ecosystems; several chapters have dedicated a side­bar to the complex relationship between a changing climate and its impact on living systems. This notion of connectednessbetween climate, landscape, and life; between our daily work and the expression of its meaning; between planetary-scale drivers and humble living things; between the abstraction and rigor of data and the reality and complexity of their importance; and especially between one generation and the nextinspires and informs much of the work within this volume.”

More information

Download the full report here

Blunden, J., and D. S. Arndt, Eds., 2016: State of the Climate in 2015. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 97 (8), S1-S275.

See: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams/2015

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