Justin Gillis

The oceans are rising faster than at any point in the past 28 centuries, and human emissions of greenhouse gases are primarily responsible, scientists reported Monday.

Scientists reported Wednesday that 2015 was the hottest year in recorded history by far, breaking a record set only the year before — a burst of heat that has continued into the new year and is roiling weather patterns all over the world.

Every kind of climate trouble that the experts have been warning about for years seems to be occurring at once.

Industrial emissions of greenhouse gases rose only slightly in 2014 and appear to be on track to decline in 2015, raising the possibility that rapid global emissions growth may be coming to an end.

The New York attorney general has begun a sweeping investigation of Exxon Mobil to determine whether the company lied to the public about the risks of climate change or to investors about how those risks might hurt the oil business.

NOAA said Wednesday that last month was the hottest September on record and in fact took the biggest leap above the previous September that any month has displayed since 1880, when tracking began at a global scale.

Sitting on a flat volcanic plain 18,000 feet above sea level, the great Quelccaya ice cap of Peru is the largest piece of ice in the tropics. In recent decades, as scientists have watched it melt at an accelerating pace, it has also become a powerful symbol of global warming.

Nations have so dragged their feet in battling climate change that the situation has grown critical and the risk of severe economic disruption is rising, according to a draft U.N. report. Another 15 years of failure to limit carbon emissions could make the problem virtually impossible to solve with current technologies, the experts found.

As unlikely as it may sound, we have lucked out in recent years when it comes to global warming.