Last month was the hottest August in modern times and marked the 16th month in a row when global records for heat were shattered planet-wide, U.S. authorities said Tuesday.
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The average global temperature in August was 0.09 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it was a year ago, making last month the warmest August in recorded history. And the year-to-date temperatures surpassed records set in 2015 by 0.29 degrees.
The eight-month period between January and August broke its record, as well, with an average global temperature 1.82 degrees above the 20th century average, NOAA reported.
The UK saw average temperature across the month of 15.5C (59.9F), some 0.6C (1.1F) above the 1981-2010 average, and the highest for August since 2013.
The average temperature for the globe was 0.92 degrees Celsius above the 20th-century average.
The summer period – encompassing June through August – was also warmest on record, 0.07 degrees warmer than the summer of 2015, the previous recordholder. Both land and ocean surface temperatures were record warm for the year so far.
Parts of Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, the Indian Ocean, central Asia, central and southern Africa, northern South America, Central America, Alaska and western Canada were record warm in January-August 2016. It was the fifth hottest month of any kind recorded, going back to 1880.
Unusually warm conditions covered most of the globe.
Typically hot locations, such as India, Kuwait and Iraq, set new benchmarks for what constitutes their hottest days.
Meanwhile in the Arctic, both the Northwest and Northeast Passages were open for navigation, with a massive cruise ship passing through the Northwest Passage for the first time, carrying more than 1,000 passengers and crew.
The news arrives in the wake of the final stat line for this year’s Arctic sea ice minimum.
The agency published a graph showing different scenarios in which 2016 could end up being the second-warmest year.
The temperature anomaly of 0.98 degrees Celsius above average topped the previous warmest August in 2014 by 0.16 degrees, according to NASA’s analysis released earlier.
Global average surface temperature anomaly horserace for 2016 compared to previous warmest years.
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The warming trend of El Nino subsided in July and neither El Nino nor La Nina, its cooling counterpart, are expected to prevail for the rest of this year.
