Record-high ocean temperatures will make 2014 the hottest year on record, or at least among the very warmest, in evidence of a long-term trend of global warming, the U.N. weather agency said Wednesday. With temperature data showing 2014 currently tied for the hottest year on record, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) rejected claims that global warming has paused. Including this year, 14 of the 15 hottest years on record will have been in the 21st century, the WMO said of the findings issued during 190-country talks in Lima, Peru on ways to combat climate change. In the first nine months of 2014, ocean temperatures set a new record, while land temperatures were the fourth- or fifth-highest since record keeping started in the 19th century. If temperatures stay above normal for the rest of the year, "2014 will likely be the hottest on record, ahead of 2010, 2005, and 1998," the WMO said. "There is no standstill in global warming," WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement. "What is particularly unusual and alarming this year are the high temperatures of vast areas of the ocean surface." According to the WMO, "High sea temperatures, together with other factors, contributed to exceptionally heavy rainfall and floods in many countries and extreme drought in others." It cited floods in Bangladesh and Britain and droughts in China and the U.S. state of California.
