Outlet glacier Hoffellsjökull as seen in Vatnajökulsþjóðgarður National Park in southeast Iceland. Due to climate change, Hoffellsjökull glacier has retreated a considerable distance, and a deep glacial lake is rapidly developing in the depression left behind. (credit: Cheryl Strahl)
As record months piled up, it became clear a while ago that 2015 was going to be the hottest year on record. Now the final numbers are coming in—and like the official times from a race between me and Usain Bolt, they’re hardly a surprise.
Just as La Niñas hold down the global average temperature because of the cool ocean water rising to the surface in the eastern equatorial Pacific, El Niño conversely pushed the average temperature up. And 2015 saw a doozy of an El Niño that rivaled the monsters of 1997 and 1982. As the long-term trend of global warming continues, El Niño years are likely to be your record-setters.
The US saw the second-warmest year on record for the Lower 48 (2012 is still tops) and the third wettest year as Oklahoma and Texas set records. California, however, had its thirteenth-driest year, with the promise of El Niño rains yet to deliver. The UK had its sixth-wettest year on record, but not quite as warm—15 years have been warmer.
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