WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 2015
The year 2015 will stand out in the historical record of the global climate in many ways. Modern records for heat were broken: 2015 was a record warm year both globally and in many individual countries. Heatwaves were extremely intense in various part of the world, leading to thousands of deaths in India and Pakistan. Record extreme precipitation led to flooding that affected tens of thousands of people across South America, West Africa and Europe. Dry conditions in southern Africa and Brazil exacerbated multi-year droughts. The influence of the strong El Niño that developed in the later part of 2015 can be discerned in many of the year’s weather and climate events. The warming trend and an increasing number of disasters are expected to continue for several decades. That emphasizes the need to invest in adaptation as well as mitigation. One of the most powerful ways to adapt to the consequences of climate change is to strengthen disaster early warning and climate services. As part of its mandate to provide authoritative information about weather, climate and water, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) conducts annual assessments of the state of the global climate.
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