Hottest first nine months recorded in 2015: WMO

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) on Friday said this year the world witnessed the hottest January-to-September period on record.

According to the September 2015 Global Climate Report from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces was the greatest rise above average for any month in the 136-year historical record, Xinhua reported.

WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis said the September average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 0.9 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average.

She noted record warmth was observed across much of South America and parts of Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia.

With strong El Nino conditions in place, the September global sea surface temperature was 0.81 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average of 16.2 degrees Celsius, the highest departure for September on record, beating the previous record set last year by 0.07 degrees Celsius.

"This departure from average is also 0.25 degrees Celsius higher than the global ocean temperature for September 1997, when the last strong El Nino occurred," Nullis noted.

The year-to-date temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 0.85 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average. This was the highest for January to September in the 1880 to 2015 record, surpassing the previous record set in 2014 by 0.12 degrees Celsius.