Hottest year on record ELLANIE SMITWhile summer temperatures in Namibia have been soaring, it is predicted that 2016 will be the hottest year ever recorded globally.
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) says 2011 to 2015 was the hottest five-year period on record, but 2016 will be even hotter.
“We just had the hottest five-year period on record, with 2015 claiming the title of the hottest individual year. Even that record is likely to be beaten in 2016,” it says.
The WMO’s preliminary climate assessment for 2016 is to be released next week.
However, global analyses that have been released so far indicate that this year there was a streak of 16 consecutive record-setting hot months until August, while September was the second-warmest September on record and October was the third warmest on record globally.
In a report released on Tuesday at the international climate talks being held in Morocco, the WMO says the period 2011 to 2015 featured a large number of extreme weather events, including heat waves, extreme cold, tropical cyclones, flooding, droughts and severe storms.
It specifically mentions that southern Africa was affected by a number of major heat waves during the 2015/16 summer from October 2015 onward, in conjunction with a major drought affecting the region.
According to the report numerous locations broke previous records for their highest temperature on multiple occasions in November and December 2015 and early January 2016.
It also points out that parts of southern Africa were affected by a prolonged drought from late 2013, particularly Namibia, Angola and the North West Province of South Africa.
The report strongly links human activities to rising temperatures.
It says the rise in temperatures is linked directly to the increase in greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. The report also highlighted the human fingerprint in these emissions and the link it has to extreme weather events.