2015 has officially been declared the warmest year in recorded history, The New York Times reports. The findings confirmed by scientists this week support earlier predictions that last year would be the Earth's warmest. Last year was also the 19th consecutive year that temperatures reached above-average levels globally.

Scientists have been tracking the Earth's temperatures from year to year since 1880. Earlier this month, government scientists announced that 2015 was the second hottest year in US history, and the announcement that 2015 was the warmest worldwide was expected to follow shortly thereafter. NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released those findings today.

Before this, 2014 held the record for the warmest year in history. Michael E. Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State, told the Times that if the Earth were not warming globally, there would only be a one-in-1,500 chance that two consecutive years would hit record temperatures.

According to the analysis released by NOAA, 2015 was 0.29 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than 2014 — the biggest jump ever from one record to the next.