NASA, NOAA Confirm 2015 As the Warmest Year On Record

2015 was the Earth's warmest year on record, according to NASA and NOAA. It broke the record by 0.23 degrees Fahrenheit, the second largest yearly jump since record keeping began in 1880. The average temperature of the Earth is now 1.8 degrees above what it was in the late 19th century. This is significant because the Paris climate agreement aims to keep the temperature increase to 3.6 degrees.

Because of the wide margin over 2014, NASA calculated that 2015 was a record with 94 percent certainty, about double the certainty it had last year when announcing 2014 as a record.

Although 2015 is now the hottest on record, it was the fourth time in 11 years that Earth broke annual marks for high temperature.

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"It's getting to the point where breaking record is the norm," Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe said. "It's almost unusual when we're not breaking a record."

Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University said a strong El Nino, like this year's, can add about a third of a degree of warming to Earth's temperature.

"Records will happen during El Nino years due to the extra warming boost they provide," Mann said in an email. "That boost of warmth however sits upon the ramp of global warming."

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And it's likely to happen this year, too. NASA scientists and others said there's a good chance that this year will pass 2015 as the hottest year on record, thanks to El Nino.

"2015 will be difficult to beat, but you say that almost every year and you get surprised," said Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at the College of DuPage outside of Chicago.Measurements from Japan and the University of California at Berkeley also show 2015 is the warmest on record. Satellite measurements, which scientists say don't measure where we live and have a larger margin of error, calculate that last year was only the third hottest since 1979.

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