2015 was by far the hottest year in all of recorded history, scientists announced on Wednesday; it has previously been reported that it was the second-hottest year in the continental United States. Meteorologists suspected a global temperature record was possible months ago as part of one of the largest El Niños of the century, although scientists also pinned blame on climate change caused by emissions of greenhouse gases.
"The whole system is warming up, relentlessly," Gerald A. Meehl, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told The New York Times. Back-to-back records in both 2014 and 2015 indicate the world is not just warming, but doing so rapidly; climate scientist Michael E. Mann estimates that if the global climate were not warming, the odds of breaking records in consecutive years is one in every 1,500 pairs of years.
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