The world experienced its hottest decade, in the first ten years of the 21st century, since the global climate began recording its measurements in 1850, the United Nations reported.
A press release posted on the U.N.'s website Wednesday said, according to the report Global Climate 2001-2010, A Decade of Extremes, the world endured "unprecedented high-impact climate extremes."
The report stated a rapid loss of ice sheets on the world's glaciers likely contributed to the high temperatures.
"Rising concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are changing our climate, with far reaching implications for our environment and our oceans, which are absorbing both carbon dioxide and heat," said Michel Jarraud, the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which produced the report.
Extreme heat was not the only weather-related issue of the past decade. There were also an all-time high of severe floods, droughts and tropical cyclones, taking the lives of 37,000 people worldwide, a 20 percent increase from the previous decade.
Droughts had a wide environmental affect across the globe, while cyclone-related disasters cost approximately $380 billion in damages.
"We are already seeing the effects of climate change and so we need to take action through the use of scientifically-based climate services to cushion the impact on our environment, our economies and our societies," Jarraud said.
The Intergovernmental Board on Climate services is an international initiative meant to improve countries' science-based research and information on climates. They have convened in Geneva and the session will last until Friday, July 5 with the goal of better preparing societies to handle future climate crises.
"Decisions on flood defences and dams, for instance, are often based on past experience and not on the likely future. But the past climate is no longer a sufficient guide to the future. We need to anticipate the climate we shall have in the next 50 to 100 years," said Jarraud. "It's a huge challenge but it's not a hopeless challenge if we all work together."
