2014 on track for hottest year on record: U.N weather agency

With temperature data showing 2014 currently tied for the hottest year on record, the U.N. weather agency has rejected claims that global warming has paused. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday the global average temperature in January-October was 0.57 Celsius above average, the same as in record hot year 2010. The ocean temperature set a new record in the nine-month period, while land temperatures were the fourth or fifth highest since record-keeping began in the 19th century, the WMO said in a report released at U.N. climate talks in Lima and at its headquarters in Geneva.

The provisional information for 2014 means that 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have all occurred in the 21st century. There is no standstill in global warming.

WMO chief Michel Jarraud

Parts of the planet were cooler than average, including large areas of the U.S., Canada and central Russia. But most of the world experienced temperatures above average, with heat waves in South Africa, Australia and Argentina in January and in large parts of South America in October, according to the WMO assessment. While scientists are now 95 per cent certain that the temperature rise since the middle of the 20th century is mostly man-made, they can’t say with the same confidence how the warming affects different parts of the climate system, including the frequency of tropical storms or hurricanes. Climate skeptics point to a perceived hiatus in the temperature rise since 1998, an exceptionally hot year, to support their claims that man-made warming is not a big problem. Most climate scientists reject that idea.