Each of the past 12 months has set a record for being the warmest such month in 137 years of record-keeping, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The agency released new data on Wednesday finding that April also was the warmest such month on record for the globe, creating the 12-months of consecutive warmth, which has never happened before since instrumental records began in 1880.
According to NOAA, global average surface temperatures during April were 1.10 degrees Celsius, or 1.98 degrees Fahrenheit, above the 20th century average, which was the most unusually mild April on record. Surpassing April of 2010 by 0.28 degrees Celsius, or 0.50 degrees Fahrenheit, this was the fourth most unusually mild month of any month out of all 1,636 months on record.
All four of the highest monthly temperature departures from average have occurred in 2015 and 2016.
The NOAA data matches the general findings of two other global agencies, NASA and the Japan Meteorological Agency, which also found April to be the warmest such month in their records.
The record warmth in 2015 and 2016 is due to a combination of human-caused global warming combined with an unusually intense El Niño event in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
However, climate scientists have said that human-cased global warming likely played a far larger role than the El Niño has, as shown by the fact that this burst of warmth easily outpaced the records set during a similarly strong El Niño in 1997-98.
In addition, the year-to-date is also by far the warmest January to April period on record, NOAA found. After a record warm January, February, March and now April, the year-to-date is running at 1.14 degrees Celsius, or 2.05 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average. That beats the previous record set last year by 0.30 degrees Celsius, or 0.54 degrees Fahrenheit, and crushes the record set during the 1998 El Niño, by 0.45 degrees Celsius, or 0.81 degrees Fahrenheit.
[vc_btn title=”More on record setting warmth” style=”outline” color=”primary” align=”left” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fmashable.com%2F2016%2F05%2F18%2Fwarmest-12-months-april-climate%2F%3Futm_sid%3D51cd316bb91a7c788952ae87%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_campaign%3Ddaily%26utm_source%3Dnewsletter%26utm_cid%3Dmash-prod-email-topstories%26utm_emailalert%3Ddaily%23YWK03mHFgGqU|title:More%20on%20record%20setting%20warmth|target:%20_blank”][vc_message message_box_style=”3d” message_box_color=”turquoise”]By Andrew Freedman, Mashable, excerpt posted on SouthFloridaReporter.com May 20, 2016 [/vc_message]Disclaimer
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