Scientists Warn World Will Miss Key Climate Target

The Guardian - Robin McKie

Grim backdrop to vital global emissions talks as new analysis shows 1.5C limit on warming is close to being broken

A tropical coral reef off Fiji. Photograph: Alamy

Leading climate scientists have warned that the Earth is perilously close to breaking through a 1.5C upper limit for global warming, only eight months after the target was set.
The decision to try to limit warming to 1.5C, measured in relation to pre-industrial temperatures, was the headline outcome of the Paris climate negotiations last December. The talks were hailed as a major success by scientists and campaigners, who claimed that, by setting the target, desertification, heatwaves, widespread flooding and other global warming impacts could be avoided.
However, figures – based on Met Office data – prepared by meteorologist Ed Hawkins of Reading University show that average global temperatures were already more than 1C above pre-industrial levels for every month except one over the past year and peaked at +1.38C in February and March. Keeping within the 1.5C limit will be extremely difficult, say scientists, given these rises.
These alarming figures will form the backdrop to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change talks in Geneva this month, when scientists will start to outline ways to implement the climate goals set in Paris. Dates for abandoning all coal-burning power stations and halting the use of combustion engines across the globe – possibly within 15 years – are likely to be set.
Atmospheric heating has been partly triggered by a major El Niño event in the Pacific, with 2016 expected to be the hottest year on record. Temperatures above 50C have afflicted Iraq; India is experiencing one of the most intense monsoons on record; and drought-stricken California has been ravaged by wildfires.
Stanford University's Professor Chris Field, co-chair of the IPCC working group on adaptation to climate change, told the Observer: "From the perspective of my research I would say the 1.5C goal now looks impossible or at the very least, a very, very difficult task. We should be under no illusions about the task we face."
The Paris summit first agreed to limit global warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels and then decided to try to keep it below 1.5C. This latter limit was set because it offered the planet a better chance of staving off catastrophes such as the melting of polar ice, which would no longer be able to deflect solar radiation and allow even greater global warming. Similarly, coral reef destruction and extreme sea level rises might be avoided if the 1.5C limit is achieved.
"If the world puts all its resources into finding ways to generate power without burning fossil fuels, and if there were international agreements that action must happen instantly, and if carbon emissions were brought down to zero before 2050, then a rise of no more than 1.5C might just be achieved," said Dr Ben Sanderson of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. "That is a tall order, however."
The problem was made particularly severe because moving too quickly to cut emissions could be also be harmful, added Field. "If we shut down fossil fuel plants tomorrow – before we have established renewable alternatives – we can limit emissions and global warming, but people would suffer. There would be insufficient power for the planet. There is an upper limit to the rate at which we can move to a carbon-free future."
The Paris agreement is vague about the exact rate at which the world's carbon emissions should be curtailed if we are to achieve its 1.5C target. It merely indicates they should reach zero by the second half of the 21st century, a goal that was accepted as being ambitious but possible – until global temperatures increased dramatically this year.
"It means that by 2025 we will have to have closed down all coal-fired power stations across the planet," said John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. "And by 2030 you will have to get rid of the combustion engine entirely. That decarbonisation will not guarantee a rise of no more than 1.5C but it will give us a chance. But even that is a tremendous task."
Many scientists now believe the most realistic strategy is to overshoot the 1.5C target by as little as possible and then, once carbon emissions have been brought to zero, carbon dioxide could be extracted from the atmosphere to start to cool the planet back down to the 1.5C target. In other words, humanity will have to move from merely curtailing emissions to actively extracting carbon dioxide from the air, a process known as negative emissions.
"Some negative emission technology will inevitably have to be part of the picture if you are going to keep 1.5C as your limit," said Professor Jim Skea, a member of the UK government's committee on climate change. "There will always be some human activities that put carbon into the atmosphere and they will have to be compensated for by negative emission technology."
But what form that technology takes is unclear. Several techniques have been proposed. One includes spreading crushed silicate rocks, which absorb carbon dioxide, over vast tracts of land. Another involves seeding oceans with iron to increase their uptake of carbon dioxide. Most are considered unworkable at present – with the exception of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. Under this scheme, vast plantations of trees and bushes would be created, their wood burned for energy while the carbon dioxide emitted was liquefied and stored underground.
"It could do the trick," said Cambridge University climate expert Professor Peter Wadhams. "The trouble is that you would need to cover so much land with plants for combustion you would not have enough space to grow food or provide homes for Earth's wildlife. In the end, I think we just have to hope that some kind of extraction technology, as yet unimagined by scientists, is developed in the next couple of decades. If not, we are in real trouble."

Links

• Environmental records shattered as climate change 'plays out before us'
• Climate models are accurately predicting ocean and global warming
• World set for climate disaster, say activists, as Lima talks falter
• Climate change is not just about science – it's about the future we want to create
• UN's 2C target will fail to avoid a climate disaster, scientists warn
• British plan to avert climate disaster using sun power
• Global warming likely to breach 2C threshold, climate scientists conclude
• Scientists call for overhaul of UN 'blockbuster' climate reports

Rio 2016: Opening Ceremony Features Environmental Rallying Cry

ABC News - AFP

Green was the theme as Brazil sent a message to the world. (AP Photo: Markus Schreiber)

A rallying cry to save the planet from environmental destruction has launched the Olympic Games as Rio de Janeiro put on a glittering opening carnival.

The overwhelming theme of the evening was protection of the environment.
"It is not enough to stop harming the planet, it is time to start healing it," programme notes from the ceremony's organisers read.

"This will be our Olympic message: Earthlings, let's replant, let's save the planet!"

An early opening sequence depicted the birth of life, culminating in the sprouting of a green entanglement of leaves from the stadium floor depicting the Amazon rainforest.
Indigenous Brazilians then performed native dances before creating huge "Ocas" or native huts in the centre of the stage.
Yet the party mood was halted in its tracks by a sombre sequence titled 'After the Party' which used NASA scientific maps to warn of environmental crisis facing the planet, detailing rising sea levels to melting polar ice caps.
It culminated with Oscar-winning British actress Judi Dench and Brazilian thespian Fernanda Montenegro reading Carlos Drummond de Andrade's classic poem A Flor e a Nausea (The Flower and the Nausea).
The gloomy theme was lifted with a hopeful message, showing a boy captivated by the emergence of a seedling in a concrete jungle.
The theme continued as the parade of more than 10,000 athletes from 207 teams across the globe got under way.
Each athlete was presented with a seed and a cartridge of soil to enable them to plant a native tree of Brazil, which will ultimately form an 'Athletes Forest' made up of 207 different species -- one for each delegation.
With the completion of the athletes parade, mirrored towers were cleverly opened to create five green Olympic rings of lush vegetation, symbolising what the forest will one day look like.
The innovative reforestation scheme comes, however, after the failure of one of the most talked about attempts to create an environmental legacy for Rio -- cleaning up the city's polluted Guanabara Bay.
Garbage, dead animals and human effluent continue to pollute the waters of the bay, into which the raw sewage of half the city is pumped daily.

Links

• Artist gives climate science a redesign
• Obama tells federal agencies to get serious about climate change
• From heat domes to rain bombs, climate change is changing how we talk about weather
• 7 charts that make it clear climate change is already here

Climate Victims – Every Second, One Person Is Displaced by Disaster

Inter Press Service - Baher Kamal

Land degradation - Sustainable land management: do nothing and you will be poorer. Credit: UNEP

Climate change and related extreme weather events have devastated the lives and livelihoods of tens of millions of most vulnerable people worldwide– by far exceeding the total of all the unfortunate and unjustifiable victims of all terrorist attacks combined. However, the unstoppable climate crisis receives just a tiny fraction of mainstream media attention. See these dramatic facts.
"Every second, one person is displaced by disaster," the Oslo-based Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) reports. "In 2015 only, more than 19.2 million people fled disasters in 113 countries. "Disasters displace three to ten times more people than conflict and war worldwide."
As climate change continues, it will likely lead to more frequent and severe natural hazards; the impact will be heavy, warns this independent humanitarian organisation providing aid and assistance to people forced to flee.
"On average, 26 million people are displaced by disasters such as floods and storms every year. That's one person forced to flee every second."
"Climate change is our generation's greatest challenge," says Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, which counts with over 5,000 humanitarian workers across more than 25 countries.
The climate refugees and migrants add to the on-going humanitarian emergency. "Not since World War II have more people needed our help," warned the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council Jan Egeland, who held the post of UN undersecretary general for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief (2003-2006).
Egeland –who was one of the most active, outspoken participants in the World Humanitarian Summit (Istanbul May 23-24)– also stressed that the humanitarian sector is failing to protect civilians.
"I hope that world leaders can ask themselves if they can at least stop giving arms, giving money to those armed groups that are systematically violating the humanitarian law, and bombing hospitals and schools, abusing women and children," he said to IPS during the World Humanitarian Summit.
For its part, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) forecasts 200 million environmental migrants by 2050, moving either within their countries or across borders, on a permanent or temporary basis. Many of them would be coastal population.
On this, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warns that coastal populations are at particular risk as a global rise in temperature of between 1.1 and 3.1 degrees C would increase the mean sea level by 0.36 to 0.73 meters by 2100, adversely impacting low-lying areas with submergence, flooding, erosion, and saltwater intrusion.

An estimated 83,100 people remain displaced and in need of humanitarian assistance in Wau, South Sudan. Credit: OIM

In a recent interview with IPS Nairobi correspondent Manipadma Jena, the director general of the International Organisation for Migration, William Lacy Swing, said that coastal migration is starting already but it is very hard to be exact as there is no good data to be able to forecast accurately.
"We do not know. But it is clearly going to figure heavily in the future. And it's going to happen both in the low-lying islands in the Pacific and the Caribbean, and in those countries where people build houses very close to the shore and have floods every year as in Bangladesh."
"It is quite clear that we will have more and more conflicts over shortages of food and water that are going to be exacerbated by climate change," Lacy Swing warned.
Political crises and natural disasters are the other major drivers of migration today, he said to IPS in the interview.
Lacy Swing confirmed the fact that climate victims now add to record 60 million people who are fleeing war and persecution.
"We have never had so many complex and protracted humanitarian emergencies now happening simultaneously from West Africa all the way to Asia, with very few spots in between which do not have some issue. We have today 40 million forcibly displaced people and 20 million refugees, the greatest number of uprooted people since the Second World War."
On 25 July, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution approving an agreement to make the International Organisation for Migration part of the UN system.
Founded in the wake of the World War II to resettle refugees from Europe, OIM celebrates its 65th anniversary in December of this year.

FAO and UNHCR prepared a handbook that will help mitigate the impact of displaced people on forest resources. The handbook aims to help displaced people access fuel for cooking food while reducing environmental damage and conflicts with local communities. Credit: FAO/UNHCR

"Migration is at the heart of the new global political landscape and its social and economic dynamics. At a time of growing levels of migration within and across borders, a closer legal and working relationship between the United Nations and IOM is needed more than ever," said the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a statement welcoming the Assembly's decision.
IOM, which assisted an estimated 20 million migrants in 2015, is an intergovernmental organisation with more than 9,500 staff and 450 offices worldwide
"We are living in a time of much tragedy and uncertainty. This agreement shows Member States' commitment to more humane and orderly migration that benefits all, where we celebrate the human beings behind the numbers," IOM Director General William Lacy said.
Through the agreement, the UN recognises IOM as an "indispensable actor in the field of human mobility." IOM added that this includes protection of migrants and displaced people in migration-affected communities, as well as in areas of refugee resettlement and voluntary returns, and incorporates migration in country development plans.
The agreement paves the way for the agreement to be signed by Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon and Swing at the UN Summit for refugees and migrants on 19 September, which will bring together UN member states to address large movements of refugees and migrants for more humane and coordinated approach.

Links

• Rights of Indigenous Peoples 'Critical' to Combat Climate Change
• Asia's Rising Prosperity, Climate Change Taking Toll on Food Security
• Q&A: Crisis and Climate Change Driving Unprecedented Migration
• Climate Change Compounds Humanitarian Crises in Global South

These Hyperrealistic Drawings of Glaciers Will Make You Wake Up and Act to Save the Planet

One Green Planet - Kate Good

Most of us have grown up knowing about climate change. It's a looming topic that has been discussed and debated since it was first brought to the Senate by Scientist Dr. James Hansen in the 1980s, and while some people are content to ignore the reality of this oncoming phenomenon, we are reaching a point where we simply can't anymore.
Between drastic temperature fluxes, extreme drought, water scarcity, storms larger and more destructive than any others witnessed before, and even species extinction, climate change is wreaking havoc on the planet. There is currently more carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere than there has been in the past 800,000 years, and the fact is these greenhouse gas emissions are coming from human industry and actions. While this might be saddening to know, it is also empowering because it means we all have the power to put and end to this. Unfortunately, since most of the population doesn't have to face the reality of climate change on a daily basis, it is easy to block out and ignore. This is a serious problem considering we need global action fast if we hope to save the planet (but really ourselves).
Luckily, there are awesome people like Zaria Forman who have made it their mission to wake people up from this apathy. Forman uses art to inspire people to take interest in the world's disappearing landscapes. Her primary focus is on glaciers.

Using only pastel and her fingers to smudge, Forman creates hyperrealistic glacier drawings.

On her Facebook page, Zaria describes her work as "large scale pastel drawings that document Earth's shifting landscape and the effects of progressive climate change."

Her inspiration to start drawing glaciers came from her childhood experience traveling to the world's most remote landscapes with her family.

We've all heard that the ice caps are melting, but it is a very different experience to see these structures up close.

With every detail, Forman sends the message that this is the beauty we stand to lose if we don't make a change … soon.

It is near impossible to look at these works of art and not be inspired to protect this gorgeous landscape. The good news is you can start taking action today! Cutting your personal carbon footprint is the surest way to minimize the amount of warming greenhouse gas emissions entering the atmosphere. While you can do many little things like shutting off lights when you leave your house, choosing to walk instead of drive, and switching over to energy efficient appliances – there is one simple action that often goes overlooked that has the highest positive impact: eating plant-based.
Animal agriculture is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transportation sector combined. In addition, this industry occupies 45 percent of arable land, uses 23 percent of global freshwater resources, and is responsible for rampant deforestation, water, and air pollution. By shifting away from meat and dairy products and choosing plant-based alternatives instead, you can help lower this rate of destruction. In just one year of eating plant-based, you can halve your carbon footprint – that's pretty powerful!
We all share this planet and it is up to us to do all we can to protect these gorgeous natural landscapes and ecosystems.

Links

• Climate Change May Create Infertile Hybrid Animals
• 5 Reasons to Combat Climate Change — For the Animals
• Climate Change is Making the World's Animals Really Sad
• How Protecting Sharks Can Help Slow Climate Change

Britain Shouts About Immigration But Is Silent On One Of The Root Causes: Climate Change

The Guardian - Andrew Simms

The Brexit campaign pivoted around migration but its politicians are sceptical of action on global warming that is a key driver of displacement

Nigel Farage launches UKIP's EU Referendum poster campaign in London, 16 June. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

Five months and counting
What happens as large-scale migration becomes inevitable due to a combination of environmental, economic and humanitarian reasons? Do we tackle the drivers and help the displaced, or worsen conditions causing the displacement and reject responsibility for those affected?
The campaign for Britain to leave the EU was related to those sceptical of action on global warming and in favour of financial deregulation. It's a paradoxical package, on the one hand creating the conditions for human displacement and migration through environmental damage and inequality, and on the other washing its hands of the inevitable consequences.
Global inequality is recognised as one push factor in human displacement. Climate change is another major factor, and it's set to worsen according to the UN refugee agency.
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, whose figures exclude drought and "slow burn" environmental degradation, say the largest increase in push factors were weather, especially floods, and other climate-related impacts.
The Brexit campaign pivoted around the issue of migration. Key protagonists such as Ukip, who promoted and played on fears of migration, including the infamous poster, are also antagonistic toward renewable energy and action on climate change. Andrea Leadsom, the new environment secretary, who received support from key Ukip figures, asked her officials in 2015 if climate change was real when she became energy minister.
The politics of Brexit are set to dominate Britain for years to come, holding hostage a broad range of public and environmental policy. One of the greatest threats to effective climate action will simply be the huge distraction for Whitehall of negotiating Brexit and renegotiating countless other treaties. The tragedy is that the whole project is built on a wildly distorted projection of Britain's relative role in dealing with the global displacement of people.
While the number of displaced people is shockingly high and rising globally, the latest figures from the UN clearly show it's not countries like Britain that are mainly dealing with the problem. More than eight out of 10 refugees were given shelter by poor and middle-income countries close to conflicts, not by the world's wealthy countries.
Yet David Cameron, was just one politician to use inflammatory, dehumanising language, describing migrants coming to Britain as a "swarm". The new prime minister, Theresa May, did little better, running the Home Office with a policy to create a "hostile environment" for people in the UK without legal permission with mobile posters telling them to "go home or get arrested".
Tightening border controls for people in a world of freely moving finance and one-sided trade, and in the grip of climatic upheaval, can only entrench and worsen poverty. It takes away one key, remaining option for people to improve their circumstances: to migrate.
Conversely, an environmentally viable, more equal global economy needs better management of international finance and trade. How can these things be balanced? Wanting to manage your borders is entirely legitimate, if done fairly and coherently. But that means exemplary climate policy and other innovations – such as taxing destabilising, cross-border financial speculation – as one attractive way of paying to ease tensions around migration.
But Britain finds itself in the grip of self-defeating politics, with a new carbon budget but no policy package to deliver it, accused by Ban Ki-moon's UN climate envoy of betraying the Paris deal. The National Grid says we are set to miss our renewables and emissions reduction targets. Having voted to leave Europe, it now looks as if we are voting to leave a stable climate.
Some are understandably keen, perhaps desperate, to discern a silver lining from the current cloud, assuming some grander scheme in the manoeuvres of the new administration. But, in politics, signals matter. And, few seem stronger than housing the new government department for exiting Europe in the offices of the abolished Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Links

• It's the economy that needs to be integrated into the environment - not the other way around
• Imagine the fate of a global climate treaty without the EU
• We are making the wrong energy choices for future generations
• When it comes to a shift to low-carbon energy, key players need a history lesson

Labor Slams Turnbull Government 'Flip-Flopping' On CSIRO Climate Research

Fairfax - Nicole Hasham | Peter Hannam | Marcus Strom

The Turnbull government is "flip-flopping on climate change" and doesn't know what it stands for, Labor says, after Science Minister Greg Hunt ordered the CSIRO to restore climate research as a core priority.
As Fairfax Media reported on Thursday, Mr Hunt has instructed CSIRO's executives and board to "put the focus back on climate science", just months after the national science agency slashed climate staff and programs.

Science Minister's climate revelation: Greg Hunt has revealed a plan to focus on climate science with millions more in investment that will create new jobs.

The cuts had prompted widespread condemnation, and fears that Australia was undermining global efforts to monitor and predict climate change.
The new strategy, which is yet to be fully devised, includes 15 new climate science jobs and research investment worth $37 million over 10 years.

Science Minister Greg Hunt was equivocal when asked if the CSIRO would reinstate climate scientists. Photo: Polo Jimenez

The government has increased CSIRO's agency-wide budget from $1.35 billion this financial year to $1.47 billion in 2019-20, and the $37 million will be drawn from those funds.
In a statement on Thursday, Labor climate change spokesman Mark Butler and science spokesman Kim Carr said the government was "flip-flopping on climate change".
"[This] is just another example of a government that doesn't know what it believes in or stands for," the statement said.
"[Spending] $37 million over 10 years is a mere fraction of the $115 million that was ripped out of CSIRO over four years - it is grossly inadequate."
Labor said some of the world's best climate scientists had already been made redundant and were preparing to leave the agency.
"With them goes decades of knowledge and capability", Labor said, adding that the 15 new positions came "nowhere near replacing … around 300 CSIRO scientists who are still facing the prospect of losing their jobs".
Speaking on ABC radio on Thursday, Mr Hunt was equivocal when asked if CSIRO would reinstate climate scientists who had or would soon be made redundant, saying the government was "starting from where we are".
CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall announced the job cuts in an email to staff in February, saying climate change had been established and the agency's focus should move to mitigation and adaptation.
Mr Hunt rejected suggestions that Dr Marshall's position was now untenable, saying the CSIRO had "embraced and endorsed" the new direction and Dr Marshall was an outstanding science leader "not just in Australia but around the world".
The CSIRO on Thursday would not comment on whether its board extended Dr Marshall's contract beyond December at its July meeting - despite his continued appointment being endorsed by cabinet before the election.
Greens deputy leader Larissa Waters said Dr Marshall's "complete disrespect for climate science" meant he should leave the organisation. She called on the board not to renew his tenure.
Senator Waters said Mr Hunt's directive to the CSIRO was "more gesture than substance" and called for him to fully reverse the funding cuts.
Andy Pitman, Director of ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of NSW, said the Turnbull government had made much of the "arms-length" role of CSIRO before the election but threw that principle out soon after the election.
On the question of reallocating funding to climate research from elsewhere in the CSIRO, Professor Pitman said: "You will not generate new income streams from climate science, so it's a problem for [CSIRO's] budget … what are they going to cut?"

Links

• Turnbull government orders CSIRO U-turn towards climate science
• Government offers hope by telling CSIRO to reinvest in climate research
• CSIRO staff sceptical of Science Minister Greg Hunt U-turn on climate change
• CSIRO: Greg Hunt instructs organisation to renew climate science focus, confirms new jobs

State Of The Climate 2015: Global Warming And El Niño Sent Records Tumbling

The Conversation - Andrew King | Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick

Victoria was one of several states to suffer bushfires as temperatures soared in late 2015. AAP Image/David Crosling

The State of the Climate in 2015 report, led by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was released yesterday. Unfortunately, it paints a grim picture of the world's climate last year.
For a second consecutive year the globe experienced its hottest year on record, beating the 2014 record by more than 0.1℃. From May 2015 onwards, each month set a temperature record for that particular month, a pattern that has yet to end.

In all three global temperature series, 2015 stands out as the hottest year. UK Met Office, Author provided

The record-breaking temperature anomaly in 2015 (around 1℃ higher, on average, than what would be expected in a world without humans) was in large part due to human-caused climate change. A small fraction of the heat was because of a major El Niño event, which developed midway through 2015 and ran into this year.
During El Niño events we see warmer sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. A resulting transfer of heat from the ocean into the lower atmosphere causes a temporary warming effect. In La Niña seasons, the opposite happens.
Overall, about 0.05-0.1℃ of the global temperature anomaly for 2015 was due to El Niño. The bulk of the remainder was due to climate change. So even if we hadn't had an El Niño last year, 2015 would still have been one of the hottest years on record.
Of the 16 hottest years ever recorded, 15 have happened this century.

Extreme events around the world…
At regional scales we also saw many extreme events last year. The downward trend in Arctic sea ice continued, with the lowest annual maximum extent on record. Alaska's winter was almost non-existent, with many Arctic mammals and fish being forced to change their behaviour and shift their habitats.
Many extreme heatwaves occurred in 2015. These included a deadly hot spell in India and Pakistan and severe heat events in Europe and North America. Combined, these events killed thousands of people.
In Europe, various summer heat records were set in Spain, the Netherlands, France and Britain, while Germany posted an all-time record temperature.
Seasonal-scale extreme heat occurred over many parts of the globe. There were many more warm days and nights than normal over much of Europe in summer, and in Russia and North America in spring.

Extreme events occurred around the world in 2015. NOAA NCEI
LINK to large image (click on it to expand)

Across the world there were more tropical cyclones than normal, mainly due to increased cyclone activity across the Pacific basin, and many significant flood events. On the other hand, large areas suffered severe drought (14% of the land surface, up from 8% in 2014).
The Ethiopian drought devastated crops and affected millions of people. Parts of South America experienced the worst drought in 80 years. The western US drought continued, despite the fact that El Niño events usually bring this region some reprieve.

…including in Australia
In Australia, probably the most significant climate extreme we had was the record heat in October.
The country experienced its biggest monthly temperature anomaly on record – almost 3℃ above the historical national average. The frequency of very warm days was also well above average. This unusual early heat triggered bushfires across the southeast.
Even given the El Niño event (which normally warms up Australia in spring and summer), the maximum temperature records that were set were, for example, at least six times more likely in Melbourne than they would have been in the absence of human-caused climate change.

Australia experienced its hottest October on record in 2015. Bureau of Meteorology, Author provided

For 2015 as a whole, Australia experienced its fifth-warmest year on record. Nine out of 12 months were warmer than average.

A continuation of climate change trends
Besides the record heat, the world saw many other unwanted records tumble in 2015, providing ever more extensive evidence for the effect that humans are having on the climate. Greenhouse gas concentrations (the primary cause of our changing climate) rose to record high levels, with carbon dioxide concentrations passing the 400 parts per million mark at many sites. The year's margin of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations was also the largest on record.
Our influence on the climate can also be seen through record high globally-averaged sea levels and the highest globally-averaged sea surface and upper ocean temperatures on record.
The trend towards more heat extremes and fewer cold ones also continued. In fact, 2015 had about three times as many very warm days as very cold ones globally compared with the historical average.
A plethora of records was broken, with a human fingerprint being clear in many cases.

What's next?
We already know that 2016 is very likely to overtake 2015 globally as the hottest year on record. As the El Niño peaked earlier this year we saw many extreme events around the world and in Australia. This included the devastating coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, which would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.
Unfortunately, in many ways, the climate of 2015 is not likely to stand out as especially unusual in a few years' time. More record hot years are likely, with associated extreme weather events, as greenhouse gas concentrations continue to climb.
Only with rapid and substantial cuts to these emissions will it be possible to limit global warming to well below 2℃, a key aim of the Paris climate agreement, and reduce the likelihood of yet more climate records tumbling.

Links

• El Niño is over, but has left its mark across the world
• 2016 is likely to be the world's hottest year: here's why
• El Niño is over, but has left its mark across the world
• What North America can expect from El Niño