2014 was a summer sizzler: Earth's hottest on record
The planet just had its hottest summer on record, according to data
released Thursday by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. It's also
well on its way to having its hottest year ever, beating 2010, said
climate scientist Jake Crouch of the data center.
The global temperature for summer was 1.28 degrees above the 20th-century average of 61.5 degrees.
Records go back to 1880. Climatologists define summer in the Northern Hemisphere as the months of June, July and August.
August
temperatures set overall records as well, the climate center reported.
The world's oceans were also very warm and had the largest departure
from average of any month.
It was the 38th consecutive August (and
354th consecutive month) that saw a global average temperature above
historic averages. The last below-average August was in 1976.
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For
the year to-date, fueled in part by warmth in the oceans, 2014 is the
third-warmest year on record. According to Crouch, the only land area on
the planet that's been cooler than average this year has been the
central and eastern U.S.
In the U.S., the ongoing wild extremes of
Western heat and Central and Eastern chill combined to bring a
near-average summer temperature nationwide, the climate center reported
last week. Overall, it was the coolest summer since 2009.
States
along the West Coast had near-record high temperatures in the summer,
with above-average temperatures stretching east to the Rockies.
California, Oregon and Washington each had a top-5 warm summer,
Meanwhile,
below-average summer temperatures were recorded from the Rocky
Mountains and through much of the central U.S. and East Coast.
Other
data sets released earlier this week also reported that summer was
record warm worldwide, according to data from both NASA's Goddard
Institute for Space Studies and the Japan Meteorological Agency.
