NOAA, NASA: 2015 was hottest on Earth by a wide margin

The heat in 2015 was felt worldwide, including record highs in Central America and parts of South America.

It broke the record previously held by the year before, setting off concerns of the rising temperatures, the causes and the alarming effects, according to the official report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

NASA reported that 2015 was 0.23 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than 2014, according to data from 6,300 weather stations and observations from ships and buoys that measured land and ocean temperatures. But it’s now happened two years in a row – and 2015 was “very, very clearly the warmest year by a long chalk”, says Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

NASA said the trend is being driven by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere.

Both of NASA and NOAA’s independent measurements came to the same conclusion.

Scientists say there were several contributing factors to the record breaking heat including global warming and complex weather patterns. In previous years when we saw records being set, the gap remained significantly smaller than what we witnessed this time around. In 2014, global temperatures were 0.13 Celsius warmer, leaving a huge margin between 2014 and 2015 temperatures.

The December temperature departure from average was also the highest among all months in the historical record and the first time a monthly departure has reached +2°F from the 20th century average.

NASA posted this image on its website on January 20, 2016, while announcing 2015 was the warmest year since modern record began in 1880. The news is not exactly a surprise, given that climate scientists projected the year would claim this ominous title as early as last August, which was, if you’ll recall, the most sweltering month on record.

“This is also the largest margin by which the annual global temperature record has been broken”.

Scientists blame a combination of El Niño and increasing man-made global warming.

The data suggests that the world is now on a trajectory of rapid warming and that pledges to reduce emissions in Paris will not be enough to prevent irreversible climate change.

The current El Nino started towards the end of 2015 and is expected to last until spring 2016.