Year to date also the warmest ever, new NOAA report says
Most of the world’s land and ocean areas were much warmer than average in June.
Staff Report
FRISCO — Global temperatures soared to another record high in June, reaching 1.58 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average and breaking the mark set just last year by 0.22 degrees Fahrenheit — which may not sound like much, but it’s a pretty big increment in the world of temperature records.
The first six months of 2015 were also record warm, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center said in its monthly State of the Climate report released today. For the first six months of the year, the global land and ocean surface average temperaure was 1.53 degrees above the 20th century average, beating the 2010 record by 0.16 degrees Fahrenheit. Read the full report here.Both land and sea surface temperatures were record warm in June, with the globally-averaged land surface temperature running 2.27 degrees Fahrenheit above average, and global sea surface temps at 1.33 degrees above the 20th century average.
The June global reading was the fourth-highest monthly departure from average for any month on record, with the greatest departures from average during February and March of this year, which were both 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average.
June was also the third month of 2015 to set an all-time high global temperature record, along with March and May. January and February were each second warmest for their respective months and April was fourth warmest.
The hotspots included the Western U.S. which was record warm, as well as parts of northern South America, several regions in central to western Africa, central Asia around and to the east of the Caspian Sea, and parts of southeastern Asia. Australia reported its fifth-warmest June, and some European countries also reported near-record warmth during the month.
Western Greenland and some areas in India and China were cooler than average, and northern Pakistan was much cooler than average. Parts of Scandinavia were notably cool, with Norway reporting its 18th-coldest June on record, while temperatures across Finnland ran about 2 to 4 degrees below the 1981-2010 average.
Compiled from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, State of the Climate: Global Analysis for June 2015, published online July 2015, retrieved on July 20, 2015 from http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201506.
