Last year was officially the Earth's warmest since record-keeping began in the 1880s, the World Meteorological Organization announced Wednesday morning. That means 2016 set a global heat record for the third year in a row according to NOAA and NASA, who held a joint press conference on Wednesday to discuss the record. 
Not only was this the third consecutive year to rank hotter than all previous years, it also means 16 of the 17 hottest years on record have occurred since 2000, according to NOAA. To put this in perspective, the last time we had a record cold year was 1911. 
Temperatures over the Earth's continents and oceans in 2016 were 1.1 degree Celsius (1.98 degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial average, according to the WMO. 
That means we are already a majority of the way to the 1.5-degree warming goal set at the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. 
Climate scientists say greenhouse gas pollution, which humans are creating primarily by burning fossil fuels and chopping down rainforests, likely contributed to the 2016 record. And the pollution certainly is behind the long-term trend toward warming, scientists say. 
"The spate of record-warm years that we have seen in the 21st century can only be explained by human-caused climate change," said Michael Mann, director of the Earth Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. 
"The effect of human activity on our climate is no longer subtle. It's plain as day, as are the impacts -- in the form of record floods, droughts, superstorms and wildfires -- that it is having on us and our planet."

Source: QNA