Weather in 2016: Extreme

WASHINGTON » Last year’s global weather was far more extreme or recordbreaking than anything approaching normal, according to a new report.

The U. S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday released its annual checkup of the Earth, highlighting numerous records including hottest year, highest sea level and lowest sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctica.

The 299- page report, written by scientists around the world and published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, shows that 2016 was “very extreme and it is a cause for concern,” said co- editor Jessica Blunden, a NOAA climate scientist.

Researchers called it a clear signal of humancaused climate change. A record large El Nino, the warming of the central Pacific that changes weather worldwide, was also a big factor in last year’s wild weather.

Studies of key climate measures found:

• At any given time, nearly one- eighth of the world’s land mass was in severe drought. That’s far higher than normal and “one of the worst years for drought,” said report coauthor Robert Dunn of the United Kingdom Met Office.

• Extreme weather was everywhere. Giant downpours were up. Heat waves struck all over the globe, including a nasty one in India. Extreme weather contributed to a gigantic wildfire in Canada.

• Global sea level rose another quarter of an inch for the sixth consecutive year of record high sea levels.

• There were 93 tropical cyclones across the globe, 13 percent more than normal. That included Hurricane Matthew that killed about 1,000 people in Haiti.

• The world’s glaciers shrank — for the 37th year in a row — by an average of about 3 feet.

• Greenland’s ice sheet in 2016 lost 341 billion tons of ice. It has lost 4,400 billion tons of ice since 2002.

Many of the findings have been previously released.