The National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday that last month's
average global temperature was 61.2 degrees, which is 1.3 degrees higher
than the 20th century average. It beat 2010's old record by one-twentieth
of a degree.
While
one-twentieth of a degree doesn't sound like much, in temperature records
it's like winning a horse race by several lengths, said NOAA climate
monitoring chief Derek Arndt.
And that's only
part of it. The world's oceans not only broke a monthly heat record at
62.7 degrees, but it was the hottest the oceans have been on record no
matter what the month, Arndt said.
"We are living in
the steroid era of the climate system," Arndt said.
Arndt said both
the June and May records were driven by unusually hot oceans, especially
the Pacific and Indian oceans.
Heat records in
June broke on every continent but Antarctica, especially in New Zealand,
northern South America, Greenland, central Africa and southern Asia.
The United States
had only its 33rd hottest June.
All 12 of the
world's monthly heat records have been set after 1997, more than half in
the last decade. All the global cold monthly records were set before 1917.
And with a likely
El Nino this year — the warming of the tropical Pacific which influences
the world's weather and increases global temperatures — it is starting to
look like another extra warm year, said University of Arizona climate
scientist Jonathan Overpeck.
The first six
months of the year are the third warmest first six months on record,
coming behind 2010 and 1998, according to NOAA
Global
temperature records go back to 1880 and this is the 352nd hotter than
average month in a row.
"This is what
global warming looks like," Overpeck said in an email. "Not record hot
everywhere all the time, but certainly a reflection that the odds of
record hot are going up everywhere around the planet."
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