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The year 2015 is on its way to becoming the hottest year on record, according to a new report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, released Monday.
According to NOAA, the first six months of 2015 were the warmest on record, which could suggest that this year could overtake 2014 as the hottest year documented.
"The June globally-averaged land surface temperature was 2.27°F (1.26°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest for June in the 1880–2015 record, surpassing the previous record set in 2012 by 0.11°F (0.06°C)," Monday's report said.
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JUST IN: #June 2015 was warmest June on record for globe per @NOAANCEIclimate #StateOfClimate http://t.co/dJwfrfmMjP pic.twitter.com/2NXyersiXt
— NOAA (@NOAA)
July 20, 201
With its recent report, NOAA joins two official climate reporting organizations around the world, including the Japan Meteorological Agency and NASA, who said in similar reports that June was the warmest such month on record.
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According to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, based in North Carolina, the United States, the global average surface temperature was so far above average during June that it was the fourth-highest monthly departure from average for any month on record.
Also, the two highest monthly departures have both occurred this year, in February and March.
The report says that El Niño effect is in part responsible for the high temperatures in recent years. However, scientists maintain that El Niño alone cannot make such dramatic changes.
World's never seen a hotter June, says NASA, which also managed to fly a craft w/in 7700 miles of Pluto http://t.co/C2uItsg4sf
— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben)
July 16, 201
They argue that climate change is a result of the increasing human-induced release of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and that it is to blame for the continuing increase of temperature on Earth.
Deke Arndt, chief of the monitoring branch of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, explained recently how climate change interacts with an El Niño weather pattern to drive overall temperature increases.
"Climate change is a long-term driver, so that’s like standing on an escalator as it goes up," Arndt said during a press conference call last month. Alternately, El Niño, "is like jumping up and down while you’re on that escalator."
El Niño is a climatic phenomenon originating in the Pacific Ocean that can trigger floods, droughts, and other extreme conditions around the world.
The phenomenon takes place at different times and doesn’t continously happen. Warmest years on records were reported despite the fact that El Niño was not then present.
Moreover, 14 of the 15 warmest years since record-keeping began in the late 1800s have occurred since the year 2000.
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