2016 on track for hottest year on record

2016 is forecast to break the record for the hottest year since records began in the 19th century, the United Nations' weather agency said Monday.

Through October, global average temperatures were 2.2 degrees F above preindustrial levels.

That’s getting close to the limit set by the global climate agreement adopted in Paris last year, said the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The agreement calls for limiting the temperature rise since the Industrial Revolution to 3.6 degrees.

“Another year, another record," WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement.

"The high temperatures we saw in 2015 are set to be beaten in 2016,”  he said.

The warming effects of the natural El Niño climate pattern boosted this year’s temperatures. El Niño occurs when ocean temperatures in the central Pacific are warmer than average.

El Niño has been replaced by its cooler counterpart, La Niña, the Climate Prediction Center said last week.

The previous hottest year was 2015. The WMO said 16 of the 17 hottest years have occurred this century, the only exception being 1998, which was an El Niño year.

NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said last month that there was a 99% chance that 2016 would end up as the warmest year on record.

The USA is seeing its second-warmest year on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said last week: The national temperature is almost 3 degrees above average. Only 2012 was warmer.

The WMO's sources are the world's top three climate data sets, which are from NASA, NOAA and the United Kingdom's Hadley Centre.

A study said last week that what's considered a record warm year could be just another average year in as soon as 10 years if carbon emissions continue to rise at their current rate.

“If we continue with business-as-usual emissions, extreme seasons will inevitably become the norm within decades," said study lead author Sophie Lewis of the Australian National University.

The burning of fossil fuels such as gas, oil and coal emits carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, causing the Earth to warm to levels that cannot be explained by natural factors.