July Was Globe’s Warmest-Ever Month, U.S. Agency Says

The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces rose to 16.61 C (61.86 F) last month, surpassing the previous record set in 1998, the NOAA said.

“This record shows us that the Earth keeps getting warmer,” Jessica Blunden, an NOAA climate expert told EFE Thursday, warning of the impact of higher temperatures on sea levels and glaciers.

The average global temperature in July was 0.81 C (1.46 F) higher than the 20th-century average of 15.8 C (60.4 F), the report said.

The average temperature in July in the United States, not including Alaska and Hawaii, was 23.2 C (73.8 F), 0.11 degrees higher than the 20th-century average, the NOAA said.

The current El Niño weather system is “exacerbating the underlying effect of global warming that we’ve been experiencing for some time,” Blunden said.

“We’ve recently seen record temperatures in the ocean, a record increase in sea levels and record glacial melting worldwide,” Blunden said, adding that extreme weather phenomena such as “droughts, heat waves and flooding” are increasingly severe.

These weather events lay bare the “innumerable” impacts of high temperatures “on people and ecosystems worldwide,” the expert said.

Nine of the 10 warmest months have occurred since 2005, while the first seven months of 2015 were the warmest such period on record, according to the NOAA report.

NOAA scientists believe it is very likely that 2015 will be the warmest year in history, surpassing 2014.