By the Associated Press
MADRID — The UN weather agency says that the current decade is likely to set a new 10-year temperature record, adding further evidence that the world is getting hotter.
In this Oct, 27, 2019 file photo, a bird stands on a sun-baked pool that used to be a perennial water supply in Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe. The chair of the two-week COP25 climate summit attended by nearly 200 countries warned at its opening Monday Dec. 2, 2019 that those refusing to adjust to the planet's rising temperatures "will be on the wrong side of history." (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/File Photo/MANILA BULLETIN)
The World Meteorological Organization said Tuesday that preliminary temperature data show the years from 2015 to 2019 and from 2010 to 2019 "are, respectively, almost certain to be the warmest five-year period and decade on record."
In a report released on the sidelines of this year's UN climate change conference in Madrid, the agency said this continues the trend that "since the 1980s, each successive decade has been warmer than the last."
While full-year temperature measurements won't be available for several more months, the agency also said that 2019 is expected to be the second or third warmest year on record.