Here we go again, folks! July was the hottest July on record, August the hottest August, so I bet you can’t fathom what the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has to say about the September that closed out the hottest summer on record. You guessed it!
This week, NOAA gave us its monthly state-of-the-climate report, once again, planet Earth bested the statistical odds. The likelihood that seven of the nine months this year so far would be the hottest in NOAA’s 136 years of bookkeeping is astronomically small, unless this is indicative of some sort of trend. Which, of course, it absolutely is. We’ve seen enough record-smashing heat waves, 500 year droughts and mega-fires of late to know that something is seriously up with our planet’s thermostat.
This September, Earth clocked in at 0.90°C hotter than our global average September temperature for the 20th century (15.0°C). September 2015 also saw the greatest temperature departure from its 20th century mean among all months on record (in other words, we just lived through the most unusually warm month of all).
For the United States, it was actually only the second warmest September on record, with temperatures 2.1°C above their 20th century mean.