NASA: August Ties July for Hottest Month on Earth in 136 Years of Record Keeping

NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) has concluded that August 2016 ties July as the hottest month on modern record in world history. Their analysis shows that August 2016 was 0.16° Celsius hotter than the previous warmest August on record, August 2014, and almost one whole degree warmer than the mean August temperature between 1951 through 1980.

Tying this years month of July, it was a mere 0.1° C warmer than the previous hottest month on record which was July 2015. For more on July’s record-breaking incident please see Snowbrains’ report NASA: July 2016 Was The Hottest Month on Record on Earth.

“Monthly rankings, which vary by only a few hundredths of a degree, are inherently fragile,” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt. “We stress that the long-term trends are the most important for understanding the ongoing changes that are affecting our planet.”

-Gavin Schmidt, Director of Goddard Institute for Space Studies

• August and July are now the hottest months on record.
• Every month since October 2015 has set a new monthly high-temperature record.
• The first 6 months of 2016 beat 2015 for the hottest half-year ever recorded.
• Both 2014 and 2015 set new heat records, and 2016 is on pace to continue the trend.
• 15 of the 16 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001…

NASA has announced that there is a 99% chance that 2016 will be the hottest year on record.  The hottest year on record is currently 2015.  The hottest year on record before that was 2014.  See a trend here?  15 of the 16 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001…

But it gets worse. Since October 2015, each and every month has set a new monthly high-temperature record. That’s 11 straight months in a row according to the GISS. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) has data that would lead them to believe it is in fact 15 months in a row dating all the way back to July of 2015. Each agency conducts study and measurements a bit different which creates the slight discrepancies but the overall message is clear; the earth is in a warming trend.

“Prospects for a record 2016 given Jan-Aug data remain very high (> 99%)”

-Gavin Schmidt, Director of Goddard Institute for Space Studies