Last year’s global weather was the warmest since modern record keeping began in 1880, a U.S. government report said Thursday.
The 27th annual State of the Climate report, prepared by more than 450 scientists from nearly 60 countries under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s watch, said 2016 marked the third straight year of record warmth.
It confirmed the heat resulted from the combined influence of long-term temperature rising and a strong El Nino — a climate cycle in the Pacific Ocean with a global impact on weather patterns.
The report found most indicators of climate change continued to follow trends of a warming world, and several — including land and ocean temperatures, sea level and greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere — broke records set just one year prior.
It is unclear what effect the report will have on President Donald Trump’s stance on climate change.
Last week, the Trump administration issued its first written notification to the UN that it intends to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.
The agreement, spearheaded by Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, and signed by 195 countries in April 2016, aims to fight climate change by reducing carbon emissions and limiting global temperature rises to below 2 degrees Celsius. Syria and Nicaragua are the only countries that have not signed the agreement.
During his election campaign, Trump called global warming “a hoax” and promised to scrap the agreement. He also promised to return jobs to the coal industry, which has often been targeted by environmentalists.
