Last year shattered the record for the earth’s hottest year, according to a report from the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
As Scientific American reports, 2016 exceeded 2015 as the hottest year since reliable records began in the 19th century. Researchers found that last year was almost .4 degrees warmer on average than the previous year.
The Arctic suffered the largest increase in temperatures, but many other regions also experienced unusual heat, including parts of Africa and Asia. The global record was broken despite the fact that parts of South America and Antarctica were cooler than normal.
In 2015, almost 200 nations agreed at a summit in Paris to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial temperatures. As of last year, global temperatures were already creeping close to that ceiling set by nations at the Paris Climate Accords.