September breaks temperature record

The first nine months of this year were the hottest on record worldwide, USA government scientists said Wednesday, in another sign of the impact of risky global warming. For those wondering what winter might be like this year, NOAA’s (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) winter outlook suggests that in New England, winter temperatures will more likely than not be above the average of the last 30 years.

It also has been the warmest first nine months of any year ever recorded, dating back to 1880.

The calculation is made by averaging temperature across global land and ocean surfaces.

Parts of North and South America as well as northeastern Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia experienced unusually high temperatures last month.

The month of September 2015 is now the warmest month of September on record, according to NOAA, NASA and the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).

A strong El Niño also drove sea surface temperatures to warmest readings ever recorded, at 1.46 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average.

The last five months in a row have been record warm for their respective months. Southern South America, far western Canada, Alaska, and a swath across central Asia were cooler or much cooler than average.

The September temperature is now increasing at an average rate of 0.11 degrees Fahrenheit per decade.

The report said that, “Most of the world’s land areas were much warmer than average, falling within the top 10 percent of their historical temperature range for the January-September period”. Norway was also among the leading heat record-breakers, while Spain saw its coldest September since 1996.

Britain was also cooler than expected.

In the contiguous 48 states, the average temperature in September was 68.5 degrees, almost 4 degrees higher than the 20th century average, ranking it the second warmest on record.

The size of the Arctic sea ice is slightly larger than it was at its smallest point in 2012, but it is still at its fourth-lowest level since 1981. Furthermore, sea ice extent around the Antarctic continent during the latter half of September was actually below average for that time of year.