Global warming record crumbles due in part to freak Arctic warmth
The planet's streak of heat milestones continued into October, which came in as the second-warmest such month on record, according to NASA.
The top three warmest Octobers on record worldwide have each occurred in the past three years, NASA reported on Tuesday, with October 2015 ranking as the warmest of them.
Even though this October didn't beat last year's level of heat, it will still help ensure that 2016 will eclipse 2015 to become the warmest year on record since instrument records began in 1880.
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Global average temperatures during October 2016 were 0.89 degrees Celsius, or 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit, warmer than the mean October temperature from 1951-1980, NASA found in its preliminary analysis.
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The top 10 October temperature anomalies have all occurred since 2000, NASA found, which demonstrates how global warming has sped up in recent decades, leading to more and more climate benchmarks being exceeded.
This temperature anomaly marks a slight dip from September, which had a departure from the 20th century average of 0.90 degrees Celsius, or 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit.
Previous months in 2015 and 2016 had temperature anomalies of greater than 1-degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, above average, which had never been seen before in NASA's data.
The monthly analysis relies on data from about 6,300 weather stations around the world, including ship and buoy measurements recording sea surface temperatures, and research stations on the Antarctic ice sheet.
According to NASA's map of temperature departures from average, as well as information from other sources, the most unusual warmth during October occurred in the Arctic.
Some areas of the Arctic Ocean saw temperatures reach 8.7 degrees Celsius, or 15 degrees Fahrenheit, above average for the month, as cold air emptied out around the North Pole and spilled south into Siberia instead. This pattern has continued through November. In recent days, Arctic temperature anomalies have increased to a staggering 35 degrees Fahrenheit or more.
Due to the unusually warm temperatures (warm being relative, given that this is still the Arctic we're talking about) Arctic sea ice extent hit record low levels during October and extending into mid-November.
If this pattern continues, the sea ice may not thicken enough during the winter to survive the summer melt season.
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The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a U.N. agency, reported Nov. 8 that 2016 is very likely to be the warmest year on record, with a temperature anomaly so far of nearly 1.2 degrees Celsius. The WMO report found that this warming is due to both an El Niño event during 2015 and 2016, which boosted air and ocean temperatures, and long-term human-caused global warming.
“We continue to stress that long-term trends are the important thing, much more so than monthly rankings,” said Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in a statement.
The long-term trends show that the planet is warming quickly due to the highest levels of greenhouse gases in the air during human history. Such pollutants are the result of burning fossil fuels, such as coal and natural gas, to generate energy.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is expected to release its October 2016 climate findings in the next few days.
While both agencies use similar data, they have different methods of compiling temperature rankings, which can create in small differences between the two sets of results.
Andrew Freedman is Mashable's Senior Editor for Science and Special Projects. Prior to working at Mashable, Freedman was a Senior Science writer for Climate Central. He has also worked as a reporter for Congressional Quarterly and Greenwire/E&E Daily. His writing has also appeared in the Washington Post, online at The Weather Channel, and washingtonpost.com, where he wrote a weekly climate science column for the "Capital Weather Gang" blog. He has provided commentary on climate science and policy for Sky News, CBC Radio, NPR, Al Jazeera, Sirius XM Radio, PBS NewsHour, and other national and international outlets. He holds a Masters in Climate and Society from Columbia University, and a Masters in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School at Tufts University.
