The five-year period from 2011 to 2015 was the hottest on record, according to a report released by the World Meteorological Organization at international climate talks in Marrakech, Morocco. “Even that record is likely to be beaten in 2016,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, reports the Seattle Times.
While the report didn’t find a strong link between man-made climate events and extreme rainfall, the scientists involved said that the link to extreme high temperatures was clear. This was the case during record high seasonal and annual temperatures in the United States in 2012, as well as several other countries.
Other highlights from the report include the loss of Arctic summer ice by 28 percent compared to the average from 1981-2010. Snow cover in the northern hemisphere fell “well below average” in all five years, and the Greenland ice sheet continued to melt at above-average levels during the same period of time.
“Halting global warming at a manageable level, as the world’s nations decided in the Paris Agreement, is now a race against time,” said Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute in Germany. More than 190 countries, including the U.S. and China, have agreed to the Paris Agreement, which calls for keeping global temperature increases below 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial times.