2015: The Warmest Year on Record, According to NOAA

By Beverly Linao

Jan 21, 2016 12:31 PM EST

The National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration has released the global summary information for last year - 2015.

The report shows that last year was the warmest year on record, even breaking previous records of highs by the largest margins.

Officials from NOAA said that "overall global temperature was up 1.62°F (0.90°C) from the 20th century average, breaking the previous record set in 2014 by 0.29°F (0.16°C)." This new globally averaged highs were registered both in land surface and sea surface temperatures.

The report further states: "The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for 2015 was the highest among all years since record keeping began in 1880. During the final month, the December combined global land and ocean average surface temperature was the highest on record for any month in the 136-year record."

It also mentioned that the recorded warmth was spread around the world and was not concentrated in a particular continent or area. These include Central America, the northern half of South America, parts of northern, southern, and eastern Europe stretching into western Asia, a large section of east central Siberia, regions of eastern and southern Africa, large parts of the northeastern and equatorial Pacific, a large swath of the western North Atlantic, most of the Indian Ocean, and parts of the Arctic Ocean.

Last year also saw one of the smallest small covers. Data obtained from NOAA and analyzed by the Rutgers Global Snow Lab reflects that the average annual Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent was 9.5 million square miles. "This was the 11^th smallest annual snow cover extent since records began in 1968 and smallest since 2008." Furthermore, the data also showed that the Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent for December was at 190,000 square miles below the 1981-2010 average. This, according to the report and analysis, was the 19^th smallest December Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent in the 50-year period of record.