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UN agency reports 2014 as hottest year on record

Xinhua, February 3, 2015 Adjust font size:

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on Monday reported that 2014 was the hottest year on record and is part of a continuing trend of warmer years.

Average global air temperatures over land and sea surface in 2014 were 0.57C above the long-term average of 14.00C for the period 1961-1990, which is used as a reference period, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said that 14 of the 15 hottest years have all been in this century, Dujarric said, adding that Jarraud said that "we can expect global warming to continue, given the rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the increasing heat content of the oceans."

High sea temperatures, the UN agency has said, have contributed to exceptionally heavy rainfall and floods in many countries and extreme drought in others. Twelve major Atlantic storms battered the United Kingdom in the early months of 2014, while floods devastated much of the Balkans throughout May. The monthly precipitation over the Pacific side of western Japan for August 2014, meanwhile, was 301 percent above normal -- the highest since area-averaged statistics began in 1946.

At the same time, crippling droughts have struck large swathes of the continental United States while Northeast China and parts of the Yellow River basin did not reach half of the summer average, causing severe drought.

The diverse climate impact which afflicted nations around the planet throughout 2014 were, in fact, consistent with the expectation of a changing climate, said Jarraud.

Around 93 percent of the excess energy trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases from fossil fuels and other human activities ends up in the oceans, the WMO press release noted, as it pointed out that global sea-surface temperatures had reached " record levels" in 2014, even in the absence of a "fully developed El Nino" weather pattern.

High temperatures in 1998 -- the hottest year before the 21st century -- occurred during a strong El Nino year.

The WMO has released its latest findings regarding its global temperature analysis in advance of climate change negotiations scheduled to be held in Geneva on Feb. 8-13. These talks are expected to help pave the way towards the December 2015 conference scheduled in Paris, France, where a new universal UN-backed treaty on climate change will be adopted. Endite