2016 confirmed as the hottest year on record

The global average temperature in 2016 was 1.1°C higher than pre-industrial levels and about 0.07°C higher than the previous record set in 2015, the organisation said.

Along with record temperatures, other long-term indicators humans are changing the climate reached new heights in 2016, including levels of greenhouse gases and melting ice, the WMO said.

The analysis is based on data from the UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre, the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Extreme year

“2016 was an extreme year for the global climate and stands out as the hottest year on record,” WMO secretary general Petteri Taalas said. “But temperatures only tell part of the story.”

“Long-term indicators of human-caused climate change reached new heights in 2016. Carbon dioxide and methane concentrations surged to new records. Both contribute to climate change,” he said.

“We have also broken sea ice minimum records in the Arctic and Antarctic. Greenland glacier melt – one of the contributors to sea level rise – started early and fast. Arctic sea ice was the lowest on record both at the start of the melt season in March and at the height of the normal refreezing period in October and November.”

A powerful El Niño, a weather phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean which pushes up global temperatures, fuelled high temperatures in the early months of 2016.

Global warming link

“A particularly strong El Niño event contributed about 0.2°C to the annual average for 2016, which was about 1.1°C above the long-term average from 1850 to 1900,” said Peter Stott the Met Office Hadley Centre’s acting director. “However, the main contributor to warming over the last 150 years is human influence on climate from increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”

The record prompted renewed calls for a rapid shift away from fossil fuels to curb greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperatures.

“This is yet again a warning sign for governments, businesses and citizens to speed up the shift to a low-carbon economy,” said WWF-UK chief executive Tanya Steele.

“From our coral reefs being bleached at an alarming rate, to glaciers melting, and the world facing the first mass extinction of wildlife since the dinosaurs, there are more and more danger signs that we are breaching the environmental limits of our planet.”

She said the UK was making progress, but there was a need to drastically improve energy efficiency, switch to renewables and change consumption patterns.