The last eight years top global meteorological records as the hottest since gauging began around 140 years back, informs United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in a statement, reports new agencies dpa and AFP.

”The past eight years were the warmest on record globally, fueled by ever-rising greenhouse gas concentrations and accumulated heat, according to six leading international temperature datasets consolidated by the World Meteorological Organization,” the statement reads.

According to WMO scientists, global heating will probably continue on the current trajectory:

”The likelihood of – temporarily – breaching the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit of the Paris Agreement is increasing with time.”

2016 remains the hottest year on record, while 2022 ranks fifth or sixth place, depending on which data set is used, among annual measurements starting from 1880, WMO writes.

Record-hot temperatures were registered in France, Spain, Italy and the UK last year, whereas the average global temperature was measured as 1.15 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels.

This marks the eighth consecutive years during which the median global temperature has exceeded the preindustrial average by at least 1 degree Celsius. 

Tuesday, EU climate data service Copernicus arrived at the same conclusion that these past eight years are the hottest ever documented in Earth ­ despite the cooling effect of the meteorological phenomenon La Niñas these last three years.

La Niñas counterpart, El Niño, tends to raise temperatures such as recorded in, for instance, 2016.