Part of the increase came from the tail end of the El Niño phenomenon, which spreads warm water across the Pacific, giving a boost to global temperatures. Beyond immediate trends, longer-term weather patterns made clear the rise could not be dismissed as the impact of a severe El Niño, he said. However, it is well below the record set in 2006, the hottest UK month on record, when the average temperature was 17.8C. “Climate change and challenges associated with it or provoked by it didn’t yet reach the attention of heads of states,” said Adel Abdellatif, a senior regional advisor with the UN development programme focused on climate change in the region. Karoly said about 0.2C of that anomaly was likely to be owing to El Niño, leaving about 1.1C mostly caused by human-induced climate change.

Source: The Guardian August 16, 2016 19:30 UTC