Hottest January-June period since 1880 was this year’s

The January-June period of 2015 was the hottest such period since 1880, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has said.

During the period, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 0.85 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average. “This was the highest for January-June in the 1880-2015 period, surpassing the previous record of 2010 by 0.09 degrees, NOAA’s ‘June 2015 Global Climate Report, released on Thursday, has said.

Even globally-averaged land and sea temperatures viewed separately have been the highest for any January-June period since 1880, the report says.

Further, June 2015 was the hottest June since 1880 and the month joins February, March and May of this year in breaking the previous records. Even January was the second warmest January since 1880 and April the third.

The report provides one more statistical backing to the phenomenon of ‘global warming’, which 95 per cent of the global scientific community believe is due to human activities.

Pope issues encyclical on man-made climate change

“Human-induced climate change is a scientific reality, and its effective control is a moral imperative for humanity,” says a July 22 ‘common declaration of intent to combat environmental damage and human trafficking’ signed by the Pope and mayors of six major cities across the world.

It may be remembered that the Pope had issued an encyclical titled ‘Laudato Si’ (meaning ‘praise be to you’) that dealt in great detail with the perils of man-made climate change and the moral need to stop it.

In December, the 21st Conference of Parties (to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) will take place in Paris, where global leaders are expected to hammer out an agreement that would help combat climate change and determine the means to do so.

The common declaration that was released on Wednesday stresses that political leaders of all UN member states have a “special responsibility” to agree at the Paris conference to a “bold climate agreement”.

“The high-income countries should help to finance the costs of climate-change mitigation in low-income countries as the high-income countries have promised to do,” the declaration says.

On Tuesday, UK’s Royal Society issued a communiqué that said in order to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above the levels that existed in the mid-1850s, “we must transition to a zero-carbon world by early in the second half of the century.” This means, stopping production of coal, oil and natural gas.

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