2016 Remains on Track to Be Hottest Year on Record

Source: WMO

“Temperatures in the Arctic have been particularly high,” said Mr Taalas. “, Arctic sea ice was exceptionally low, especially during early 2016 and the October-December re-freezing period.

Antarctic ice extent was also the lowest on record in November,, in contrast to the trend of recent years. What happens at the Poles does not stay at the Poles but impacts weather patterns on a hemispheric scale,” said Mr Taalas.

The Arctic is warming at about twice the rate as the global average. The Arctic Report card, issued by NOAA and partners, highlighted that the persistent warming trend and loss of sea ice are triggering extensive Arctic changes.

“Scientific studies are increasingly proving the link between extreme weather – especially heat – and human-induced climate change from greenhouse gases,” said Mr Taalas.

“This increases the need for investment in better impact-based weather forecasts and early warning systems to save lives and support climate change adaptation both now and in the coming decades ahead.”

The most recent study, released by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) on 15 December, said that numerous weather events in 2015 were made more likely by climate change.

The strongest evidence for a human influence was found for temperature-related events — the increased intensity of heat waves around the world, record-low Arctic sea ice extent in March and the extraordinary extent and duration of Alaska wildfires.

The BAMS Special Supplement on Explaining Extreme Events from a Climate Perspective is now in its fifth year.

During that time, more than 100 peer-reviewed papers have examined extreme events spanning half a decade. Approximately 65% of these papers have shown that human-caused climate change “influenced an event’s frequency and/or intensity in a substantial and measurable manner.”

The year to date

WMO will issue final details about the 2016 state of the climate in early 2017. It will take the pre-industrial era as a baseline, and use three datasets from NOAA, NASA and the Hadley Centre of the UK’s Met Office and Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia.

WMO also draws on reanalysis data from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, which has used all available observational data and an assimilation system to produce a global climatology. 

With only one month left in the year, the 2016 year-to-date global temperature (January–November) was the highest on record for this period, at 0.94°C (1.69°F) above the 20th century average of 14.0°C (57.2°F), according to NOAA.

Record warmth for the year-to-date was present across Alaska, much of western Canada, parts of the northern and eastern United States, much of Central America and northern South America, various regions across Africa, parts of northern and southern Asia, much of southeast Asia island nations, according to NOAA.

The average global sea surface temperature for the year-to-date was the highest in the 137-year record.

Record high average sea surface temperatures for the January–November period were present across the northern Pacific waters near Alaska, the Bering Sea, parts of the southern and western Pacific, a long swath of the western Atlantic stretching to the Gulf of Mexico, parts of the southern and eastern Indian Ocean extending across the waters of the southeastern Asia island nations and Oceania.

The only ocean area with record cold temperatures was east of the Drake Passage near the Antarctic Peninsula, according to NOAA.

Copernicus Climate Change Service (ECMWF) said November 2016 “extended the spell of exceptional global warmth that has now lasted more than a year.”

A separate analysis, from the WMO Regional Climate Center – Network for Europe (WMO Regional Association VI), said that Europe would likely have its fourth warmest year on record.

WMO’s provisional statement on 2016 climate is available here

WMO statement on 2011-2015 climate is available here