UN: 2016 hottest year since 1880

MANILA, Philippines - Last year was the hottest ever recorded since 1880 and scientists put the blame on human activities, according to a United Nations weather agency tracking global temperatures.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said 2016 surpassed the exceptionally high temperatures of 2015 with global average temperature of 1.1 degree Celsius higher than the pre-industrial period.

“The long-term indicators of climate change reached new heights in 2016, as carbon dioxide and methane concentrations surged to new records,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said.

Taalas explained that carbon dioxide as well as methane concentrations have contributed to climate change.

Carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for thousands of years, trapping heat and causing the earth to warm further, the WMO reported.

It noted that the lifespan in the oceans of carbon dioxide, the single most important greenhouse gas emitted by human activities, is even longer. 

According to the WMO, carbon dioxide is responsible for 85 percent of the warming effect on the Earth’s climate the past decades.

Rising temperatures and concentrations of major greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are not the only record-breaking indicators of climate change, the WMO reported.

The Arctic sea ice has also remained at “very low levels.”

“We have broken sea ice minimum records in the Arctic and Antarctic,” Taalas said. 

“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,” he explained.

Based on WMO consolidated analyses, the “arctic is warming twice as fast the global average, and the persistent loss of sea ice is driving weather, climate and ocean circulation patterns in other parts of the world.”

Throughout 2016, there were extreme weather events which caused huge socio-economic disruption and losses.

“The one degree change means that the amount of disasters related to weather and hydrology have been increasing,” Taalas said.

He noted “climate change will have a negative impact on the economies of the countries as well as the lives and wellbeing of all humans.”

The WMO has linked weather-related events to conclusions by the International Organization for Migration and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which recently reported 19.2 million people displaced due to weather, water, climate and geophysical hazards in 113 countries in 2015.