In 2015, World Shattered Heat Record By Widest Margin Ever, Scientists Say

摘要

The year 2015 was by far the world's warmest on record, according to federal data released Jan. 20. The average temperature over land and seas beat the previous record, just set in 2014, by the widest margin since recordkeeping began, an analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed (46 ER 2129, 7/17/15). In the past, "when we've set records, the gap between the previous record and the new record, it has been substantially smaller than what we've seen this year," Thomas Karl, who directs NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, said in a call with reporters. "So that's the rather remarkable part of the story, we think, this year." 2015 was pushed over the top by a strong El Nino, but after 39 consecutive years of above-average temperatures, NOAA and NASA-tcorrespondentshe two main keepers of global temperature data-agreed that a record likely would have been set even without the periodic warming of water in the Pacific Ocean.