WMO: Humanity Now "In Truly Uncharted Territory"; 2016 Confirmed @ 1.1C Above Preindustrial Average

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"This report confirms that the year 2016 was the warmest on record—a remarkable 1.1 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. That temperature rise marks a 0.06 degrees Celsius increase over the record set in 2015. The Paris climate agreement commits the world's nations to holding the atmospheric temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celsius, to try to stave off the most catastrophic global warming impacts. Much of that increased warmth was centered in the Arctic in 2016, where mean temperatures hit at least 3 degrees Celsius above the average from 1961-90 in some areas. Norway's Svalbard Airport, in the high Arctic, reported an average temperature of -0.1 degrees, which was 6.5 degrees above the 1961-90 average and 1.6 degrees above the previous record.

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The report noted that based on early signs, 2017 will bring more broken records and extreme weather.

The Arctic has seen three heatwaves this winter, thanks to powerful Atlantic storms that bring warm, moist air the region. At the very time when the sea ice should have been refreezing on its way to the maximum extent in March, there were days when it was close to the melting point, according to the WMO report. And while Antarctic sea ice was growing in recent years, that's no longer the case. It reached a record low. In February, 11,743 warm temperature records were broken or tied in the U.S. alone, according to NOAA.

"Even without a strong El Niño in 2017, we are seeing other remarkable changes across the planet that are challenging the limits of our understanding of the climate system," said David Carlson, the director of the WMO-sponsored World Climate Research Program. "We are now in truly uncharted territory."

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/21032017/climate-change-2016-world-meteorological-organization-arctic-weather