This year’s meteorological summer was the warmest on record across the globe, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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That marked the “highest temperature for any month in the 1880-2015 record, surpassing the previous record set in July 2015 by 0.07 Fahrenheit (0.04 Celsius)”, according to NOAA. This summer is the fifth straight record hot season in a row, as well as being the fourth record hot month in a row. Five of those months also happen to be among the 10 most freakishly warm months that NCEI has ever recorded. The month tied January 2007 as the third-highest departure from normal for any month on record.
“Much of the world’s land surface was much-warmer-than-average”, the report stated, “with much of South America and parts of the western contiguous U.S. and parts of Africa and Asia experiencing record warm”.
August also set a temperature record, as did the period from January from August.
“The historical data suggest it would take a remarkable and abrupt reversal in the NOAAGlobalTemp time series over the remainder of the year to upend 2015’s drive toward record-breaking status”, scientists wrote in a Thursday blog post accompanying the latest data. Deke Arndt, the global monitoring chief for NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, likens global warming to steadily climbing a set of stairs, and El Nino as climbing those stairs on tippy-toes, says the Star Tribune.
Year-to-date temperature anomalies for 2015 (black line) to the six warmest years on record: 2014, 2010, 2013, 2005, 2009, and 1998 (via NOAA).
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The August globally-averaged sea surface temperature was 1.40 Fahrenheit (0.78 Celsius) above the 20th century average.
