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2015 "virtually certain" to become hottest year on record: NOAA

Xinhua, December 18, 2015 Adjust font size:

The past November was the warmest since record-keeping began in 1880, the ninth month this year to reach a new high and making 2015 "virtually certain" to become the hottest year on record, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said Thursday.

The November average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 0.97 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average, according to a monthly report released by the NOAA.

"This was the highest for November in the 1880-2015 record, surpassing the previous record set in 2013 by 0.27 degrees Fahrenheit (0.15 degrees Celsius), and marking the seventh consecutive month a monthly global temperature record has been broken," the report wrote.

In total, nine of the first eleven months in 2015 have been record warm for their respective months. Only January was the second warmest January on record and April third warmest.

The December global temperature, said the report, would have to be at least 1.46 degrees Fahrenheit (0.81 degrees Celsius) below average -- or 0.43 degrees Fahrenheit (0.24 degrees Celsius) colder than the current record low December temperature of 1916 -- for 2015 to not take the warmest year title.

"That's not going to happen during December," Jake Crouch, climate scientist at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, told reporters. "At this point, we're virtually certain that 2015 will be the warmest year on record."

During the first eleven months, record warmth was most notable over much of South America, the eastern and central Pacific Ocean, much of the central western Atlantic, and most of the Indian Ocean, the report said.

The long-term warming trend due to human-caused climate change, strong El Nino conditions across the equatorial Pacific Ocean and some other short-term influences are to blame for the temperature increase, Crouch said.

"We do expect the trend of upward temperatures to continue in the short and medium term," he added. Endit