2016 Was the Hottest Year on Record. Blame Humanity

(gentle music)

[Narrator] In case anyone needed any more proof

that global warming is actually a thing.

Wait for it, wait for it.

It's official.

2016 was the hottest year since records began

in the 19th century.

In fact, it hasn't been this warm

on our planet for over 100,000 years,

and that's no fluke.

While 2016 was a naturally warmer El Nino year

in the Pacific,

90 percent of the warming was due to greenhouse emissions.

This has profound implications for our planet.

Take a look at this map.

From 1880 to 2016, average temperatures around the world

have been steadily climbing.

Not so bad in the early 20th century,

but by the 80s and 90s and especially the 2000s,

things get scary.

This is particularly bad news for the Arctic,

which is heating up twice as fast as the global average.

Here we see old ice as white, and young ice as blue.

Just 25 years ago,

the Arctic had a healthy amount of old ice.

But watch what happens as the planet continues to warm.

Now there's almost zero old ice.

That's very bad news both for ecosystems, and humans.

So now we find ourselves on a planet

that's inching closer to being 1.5 degrees warmer

than it was before the industrial revolution.

And that 1.5 of warming is what Paris Agreement signatories

promise to stay closest too.

That means cutting emissions, plain and simple.

The good news is, global emissions haven't grown much

in the past few years.

And China, in particular, is doing a good job

at cutting back on coal.

But the bad news is, we now have the Trump administration,

no friend of climate science.

So what role the US plays in this crisis

is now an unsettling mystery.

But the numbers don't lie.

Earth is in peril,

and it's up to humans to fix the mess.