The warmest year the Earth has experienced since temperatures began to be recorded, in 1880, was this year, the US Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced today.
As mercury last year set one record after another each month, from January to August the surface and ocean surface temperatures were 0,94 degrees Celsius higher than the average temperature (13,9 degrees) of the 20th. century.
It also broke the previous record, of 2015, by 0,04 degrees Celsius.
In September 2016, the breaking of heat records, which continued for 16 months, stopped.
In a separate analysis based on global temperature data, the US space agency NASA also concluded that 2016 was the warmest year in 136 years.
The five years with the highest temperatures have all been recorded since the beginning of the 21st century: 2005, 2010, 2014, 2015 and 2016.
"Even if we do not take into account the rise in temperature due to the El Niίνo phenomenon, 2016 remains the warmest year in modern history," said Professor Pierce Forster, director of the Presley International Climate Center at the University of Leeds. , in the UK.
Forster said 2017 is unlikely to be that hot, but he does not rule out new records in the coming years, "unless there is a major volcanic eruption," because volcanic ash hides the sun.