19 July 2016

NASA- June 2016 is 6th Month in A Row That’s Hottest On Record.

Posted by Dan Satterfield

January- June was also the hottest ever recorded. It is now virtually certain that 2016 will pass last year as the hottest ever.

January through June was the hottest ever recorded. It’s now virtually certain that 2016 will pass last year as the hottest ever. All images here, from NASA briefing today unless otherwise specified.

13719739_10153871926646359_6748832754887792857_oThe NASA global temp. data came out today, and for the 6th month in a row the planet broke a heat record.
Here is more from NASA:

2016 Climate Trends Continue to Break Records

Two key climate change indicators — global surface temperatures and Arctic sea ice extent — have broken numerous records through the first half of 2016, according to NASA analyses of ground-based observations and satellite data.

Each of the first six months of 2016 set a record as the warmest respective month globally in the modern temperature record, which dates to 1880, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The six-month period from January to June was also the planet’s warmest half-year on record, with an average temperature 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the late nineteenth century.

Two key climate change indicators — global surface temperatures and Arctic sea ice extent — have broken numerous records through the first half of 2016, according to NASA analyses of ground-based observations and satellite data.

Each of the first six months of 2016 set a record as the warmest respective month globally in the modern temperature record, which dates to 1880, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The six-month period from January to June was also the planet’s warmest half-year on record, with an average temperature 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the late nineteenth century.

Five of the first six months of 2016 also set records for the smallest respective monthly Arctic sea ice extent since consistent satellite records began in 1979, according to analyses developed by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland. The one exception, March, recorded the second smallest extent for that month.

While these two key climate indicators have broken records in 2016, NASA scientists said it is more significant that global temperature and Arctic sea ice are continuing their decades-long trends of change. Both trends are ultimately driven by rising concentrations of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The extent of Arctic sea ice at the peak of the summer melt season now typically covers 40 percent less area than it did in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Arctic sea ice extent in September, the seasonal low point in the annual cycle, has been declining at a rate of 13.4 percent per decade.

The graph below courtesy Climate Central shows how far above the previous record hot years 2016 is through June:

2016GlobalAdjusted_Jan-Jun_20160719_1050_718_s_c1_c_c

Ctsy. Climate Central

More from NASA today:

“While the El Niño event in the tropical Pacific this winter gave a boost to global temperatures from October onwards, it is the underlying trend which is producing these record numbers,” GISS Director Gavin Schmidt said.

Previous El Niño events have driven temperatures to what were then record levels, such as in 1998. But in 2016, even as the effects of the recent El Niño taper off, global temperatures have risen well beyond those of 18 years ago because of the overall warming that has taken place in that time.

The global trend in rising temperatures is outpaced by the regional warming in the Arctic, said Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist at NASA Goddard.

“It has been a record year so far for global temperatures, but the record high temperatures in the Arctic over the past six months have been even more extreme,” Meier said. “This warmth as well as unusual weather patterns have led to the record low sea ice extents so far this year.”

Andy Freedman (at Mashable) points out that its been 32 years since the Earth registered a month with below normal temps.

Look at what the Arctic Sea ice has been doing. (It’s at record lows…)

Meier_seaice_NASA.1_print (1)

From NASA GISS briefing today.

As the graph below shows, all of the ten hottest years on record have been since 1998.

2016GlobalNumbers_TopTenYearsUpdate_660_371_s_c1_c_c

I also wrote on a related subject last week here.

Final note:

One of the reasons for the incredible warmth, is the now defunct El Nino. El Nino years are always hot years. Think of a pool that is being filled up with a large hose. The water is slowly rising, but it splashes out (new records) when someone jumps in. Now replace “hose” with greenhouse gases, and the “someone” with El Nino, and you get the idea. The La Nina that is coming will likely end our record hot month streak, but the long term rise will continue.