The Climate 25: Social Impacts of Climate Change

The Weather Channel spoke with 25 of the most influential voices on the topic of climate change. Hear what they have to say about the social impacts. 
The first five months of 2015 topped the warmest such period on record for the globe, according to a pair of recently released independent analyses from government scientists.

January-May 2015 global temperature departures from 1981-2010 average. Gray areas indicate missing data.  (NOAA/NCEI)
Global temperatures January-May 2015 exceeded 2010's as the warmest first five months of any year, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
NOAA's National Climatic Data Center noted that the first five months of 2015 nudged ahead of January-May 2010 by 0.09 degrees Celsius.
Record warm sea-surface temperatures in the northeast and equatorial Pacific Ocean, as well as areas of the western North Atlantic Ocean and Barents Sea north of Scandinavia contributed to the anomalous January-May 2015, according to NOAA.
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NOAA's analysis indicates that eastern Canada and parts of the Great Lakes and New England were the only locations much colder than average so far in 2015. Parts of the north Atlantic Ocean, eastern Atlantic Ocean off west Africa, and Southern Ocean off the tip of South America were also somewhat cooler than average in the year's first five months.
This follows a record warm 2014 for the planet.
With the potential for El Nino, a periodic warming of central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean water, to strengthen and persist the rest of the year, 2015 may top last year's record warmth.
El Nino doesn't guarantee that happening, but it's worth pointing out the previous two record warm years in NASA's dataset prior to last year, 2010 and 2005, both featured El Ninos that ended early in the year, rather than persisting through an entire year.