NASA data reveal the Earth’s temperature reached its highest point in 136 years of record-keeping during July.
“July 2016 was absolutely the hottest month since the instrumental records began,” tweeted Gavin Schmidt, who directs NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which is responsible for temperature measurements.
It was the 10th-straight month of record-breaking temperatures in NASA’s analysis, a substantial 0.18 degrees (0.1 Celsius) warmer than the previous hottest July in 2011.
“It’s a little alarming to me that we’re going through these records like nothing this year,” said Jason Furtado, a professor of meteorology at the University of Oklahoma.
“Each month just gives another data point that makes the evidence stronger that we’re changing the climate,” added Simon Donner, professor of climatology at the University of British Columbia.
July is usually the hottest month of the year, as it coincides with the peak of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. But this July was 1.51 degrees (0.84 Celsius) above the long-term (l951-1980) average.
Most of the planet’s land and ocean areas were warmer than normal in July. Parts of the Arctic were more than 7 degrees (4 Celsius) above average.
Blistering heat scorched the Middle East. Mitribah, Kuwait, simmered to 129.2 degrees which, if confirmed, would mark the hottest temperature ever recorded in the Eastern Hemisphere.
Furtado said the record global warmth was connected to extreme weather events happening around the world, such as the urban flooding in Ellicott City, Maryland, and record flooding in China. “The two are going hand-in-hand, and they’re giving us a picture of what a future world might look like,” he said.
An independent analysis of the global temperature from the Japan Meteorological Agency corroborated July’s record warmth.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has reported record global warmth the past 14 consecutive months, will release its analysis for July later this week.
The planet’s temperature has steadily risen in recent decades as heat-trapping gases have accumulated in the atmosphere. But temperatures have recently spiked, setting record highs two years in a row, in 2014 and 2015. One of the strongest El Niño events on record, dispersing heat from the Pacific Ocean into the atmosphere, has given temperatures an extra boost.
The El Niño event ended this spring, and the planet’s temperature difference from normal is no longer as remarkably high as it was earlier in the year. But it still remains at record highs.
“There’s been so much talk about El Niño this year, but this [warming] is not just El Niño,” said Donner. “The records set in 2016 have crushed the records set in previous El Niños.”
NASA’s Schmidt says there is a 99 percent chance 2016 will become the hottest year on record, passing 2015 and 2014.
(c) 2016, The Washington Post · Jason Samenow
