Weather & Temperature Update: 2014 on Pace to Be the Hottest Year on Record, UN Report Says
According to record ocean temperatures, 2014 will be the warmest year on record, as part of evidence of a long-term trend of global warming, as reported by the United Nation's weather agency on Wednesday.
Including the past 12 months, 14 of the hottest years in recorded history have been in the 21st century, according to the World Meteorological Organization. The WMO reported their findings during a discussion in Lima on how to fight climate change among 190 countries.
"There is no standstill in global warming," WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement to the group. "What is particularly unusual and alarming this year are the high temperatures of vast areas of the ocean surface."
Average sea temperatures hit all-time highs in 2014, the WMO said. Extreme weather on land included events like flooding in Bangladesh and Britain and droughts in California and China.
"High sea temperatures, together with other factors, contributed to exceptionally heavy rainfall and floods in many countries and extreme drought in others," the WMO said. "The year 2014 is on track to be one of the hottest, if not the hottest, on record ... ahead of 2010, 2005 and 1998."
Reliable temperature records stretch back to the 1850s.
The global average air temperature over sea and land surfaces from January through October 2014 was 1.03 degrees Fahrenheit above the average 57.2 degrees between 1961 and 1990.
Skeptics of climate change being a man-made phenomenon often cite the fact that temperatures have not risen much since 1998, despite a massive surge in greenhouse gas emissions.
However, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat Christiana Figueres said, "our climate is changing and every year the risks of extreme weather events and impacts on humanity rise."
She added that there were signs of moves in multiple governments that could make deep cuts to the amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.
Lasting through Dec. 12, the talks in Lima are working to create a U.N. climate deal to be agreed upon in Paris next year.
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