First nine months of 2015 are hottest on record: UN agency reports

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 27 (APP): Earth has just had
the hottest January-September on record, the United
Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said Tuesday,
adding that the average air and sea temperatures in September
logged the greatest rise above monthly average in the
136-year historical record.
According to a press release from WMO, the Global Climate
Report from the United States National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the globally averaged
air temperature over land and sea surface temperature for
September was 0.90 C above the 20th century
average temperature. Record warmth was observed across much of
South America and parts of Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia.
The year-to-date globally averaged combined temperature of the
air over land and ocean surface temperature was 0.85 C
above the 20th century average, said in the report. This was the
highest for January-September in the 1880 record, surpassing
the previous record set in 2014 by 0.12 C, according to NOAA.
With strong El Nino conditions in place, the
September globally averaged sea surface temperature was
0.81 C above the 20th century average of 16.2 C. The highest
departure for September on record, which beat the record in 2014 by
0.07 C, was 0.25 C higher than the global ocean temperature
for September 1997, preceding the peaking up of the last strong El
Nino of 1998.
Earlier this year, WMO reported that the globally
averaged temperature for the first half of 2015 was 0.85 C
above the 20th century average of 15.5 C, the hottest
for such period on record.
An annual Statement on the Status of Global Climate will be
released by WMO in November 2015, the UN climate change conference
in Paris, COP-21, analyzing the combination of data. A summary of
the global climate in 2011-2015 will be released at the same time,
said in the WMO’s statement.