August Was The 16th Straight Month Of Record-Breaking Heat

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is back with its latest report on monthly global temperatures, and the news is exactly what we expected it to be: August 2016 was yet another record-breaking month, marking 16 straight months of steadily increasing global temperatures. This is the longest streak of increasing warmth in 137 years, and — speaking of August specifically — involves temps that are 1.66F degrees higher than the 20th century average. This is 0.09F higher than last year's highest-August record.

Overall, according to the latest report, global temperatures are up all over compared to last year with, for example, the July/August seasonal temps being 1.6F higher than average, breaking last year's then-record by 0.07F. When we look at the year-to-date figure, it is 1.82F higher than average, and it has surpassed last year's own record warmth by 0.29F.

Per usual, NOAA lists some specific observations of note, including that Asia and Africa both experienced their warmest August ever, while South America came in second in terms of record-breaking heat, North American countries collectively came in 6th place, Europe had its 10th warmest August, and Oceania had its 19th warmest August.

As well, the administration says that, compared to the 1981 to 2010 average, the Antarctic sea ice extent average for last month was 0.2-percent higher. Similarly, the Arctic sea ice extent average was 23.1-percent lower, marking the 4th smallest extent since 1979 when recording keeping started.

SOURCE: NOAA