The five years from 2011 to 2015 were the warmest on record, according to the latest data released by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).  The report links human activity to global rising temperatures.

Released at the COP 22 global climate talks in Morocco, WMO says that probabilities of extreme heat events have increased ten-fold because of the burning of fossil fuels. 

The world's temperature was 0.57 C degrees above the long term average, which is defined as being between the years 1961 and 1990.  Regionally, temperatures over most of Europe and the Russian Federation territories in Asia, the Sahara and Arabian Peninsula, Southern Africa, the interior of Brazil, and the Southwestern US were more than one degree Celsius above the long term trend.  Overall, Africa was the only continent that didn't exceed the long term average, despite the heat in the south.

"The Paris Agreement aims at limiting the global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius and pursuing efforts towards 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels," said WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas.  "This report confirms that the average temperature in 2015 had already reached the 1 degree C mark. We just had the hottest five-year period on record, with 2015 claiming the title of hottest individual year. Even that record is likely to be beaten in 2016," he added.