Earth has experienced its third-straight hottest year on record, scientists have said.

Man-made global warming has been blamed, along with the impact of last year's El Nino weather phenomenon.

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the average temperature across the globe in 2016 was 14.84C (58.69F).

This was 0.04C (0.07F) hotter than 2015.

Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies in New York, said the Arctic was "enormously warm, like totally off the charts compared to everything else".


"We are now no longer only looking at something that only scientists can see, but is apparent to people in our daily lives," he added.

The oldest records date back to 1880. The last four hottest years on record before last year were in 2005, 2010, 2014 and 2015.

NASA said last year was just under 1C (1.78F) warmer than the average for the middle of the 20th century and about 1.1C (2F) warmer than at the start of the industrial revolution.

The World Meteorological Organisation chief, Petteri Taalas, said "temperatures only tell part of the story" of extreme warming.

NASA's calculations show most of the extra heat in the atmosphere was because it was being trapped by gases released by the burning of oil, coal and gas.

Only about 12% was due to El Nino, which is a cyclical warming of parts of the Pacific that has a knock effect in other parts of the world, the agency said.

Corinne Le Quere, director of England's Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, who was not part of the NOAA or NASA teams, said: "Warming (is) nearly everywhere.

"The Arctic sea ice is collapsing. Spikes in fires from the heat. Heavy rainfall from more water vapour in the air."