August 2016 world’s hottest on record

By AG Staff Writer |

AUGUST 2016 WAS the 16th consecutive month to set a global temperature record for that particular month. It was the hottest August since records began 136 years ago, breaking the previous August record set just last year.

August 2016 also tied with July 2016 as the hottest month ever recorded on Earth.

According to a State of the Climate report issued by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) today, August 2016 was 0.92°C above the 20th-century average.

2016 is now almost certainly on track to beat 2015 as the Earth’s hottest year on record.

“We’ve now seen record-breaking heat across the globe for the past 16 consecutive months. Six to twelve months ago, the strong El Niño played a part in driving high global temperatures, but that effect has now waned or completely disappeared by August,” said Professor Will Steffen, an Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University in Canberra and a Climate Councillor at the Climate Council of Australia.

“The influence of climate change in driving these continuous monthly records is now coming through loud and clear,” he said.

Temperature anomaly in °C (difference from 1980-2015 annual mean). (Credit: Joshua Stevens, based on data from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies)</s>The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday said August’s temperature of 61.74 degrees (16.52 Celsius) was .09 degrees (.05 Celsius) warmer than the old August record set last year, and was the 16th consecutive month of record-breaking heat. NOAA monitoring chief Deke Arndt said it was also the hottest summer, with 2016 on pace to smash last year’s record for the hottest year.

August 2016 was also 1.66 degrees (0.92 Celsius) warmer than the 20th-century average. It was the fifth-hottest month of any kind recorded, going back to 1880. Six of the 17 hottest months on record have been the summer months of 2015 and 2016.

The June-through-August summer was 2.18 degrees (1.21 Celsius) warmer than the 20th-century average and beat the old summer heat record, set last year, by one-fifth of a degree (0.11 Celsius), NOAA said.

“The needle has been shoved all the way over into the red by greenhouse gases,” Arndt said.

NOAA’s announcement came on a day when 375 members of the National Academy of Sciences, including Stephen Hawking and 30 Nobel laureates, released an open letter urging American leaders not to pull out of an international agreement to curb global warming.

Organizer and MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel said the scientists wrote the letter in response to the Republican party platform that rejects the Paris climate agreement reached last December. The letter said presidential nominee Donald Trump’s advocacy of withdrawing from that agreement would “send a clear signal to the rest of the world: The United States does not care about the global problem of human-caused climate change.”

Pulling out of the Paris accord, Emanuel said, “will accelerate our head-long plunge into a riskier and riskier climate.”

“Everywhere we look we see signs that the climate really is changing,” Emanuel said. “We’re getting wake-up calls more frequently and we really have to do something about this.”

The summer of 2016 has meanwhile lurched from one extreme weather disaster to another at great cost in lives and damages. Here are just some of the worst and weirdest, according to insurance statistics and meteorologists:

— Flooding in China’s Yangtze Basin from May through August killed at least 475 people and caused $28 billion in losses.

— A drought in India that started earlier in the year and stretched through June caused about $5 billion in damage.

— Flooding in West Virginia and the mid-Atlantic in June killed 23 people and damaged more than 5,500 buildings.

— Typhoon Nepartak hit the Phillipines, Taiwan and China in July, killing 111 people and causing at least $1.5 billion in damage.

— Flooding in northeast China in July killed 289 people and caused about $5 billion in damage.

— Temperatures reached 129 degrees (54 degrees Celsius) in Kuwait and Iraq in July.

— Flooding in Louisiana in August killed 13 people and caused around $15 billion in damage.

— Flooding in Sudan and South Sudan in July and August killed 129 people and damaged more than 41,000 buildings.

— A long heat wave coupled with high humidity afflicted the U.S. South and East. Savannah, Georgia, had 69 straight days when the temperature hit 90 or higher.

— Typhoon Lionrock hit Japan, China and Korea in August and killed 77 people while damaging more than 20,000 buildings.

— Spain set a record for the hottest September temperature recorded in Europe, with marks of 114 and 115 degrees.

— Localities in the United States broke nearly 15,000 daily records for hot nighttime minimum temperatures from May into September.</s>Earth smashes yet another heat record; 16th month in a row

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday said August's temperature of 61.74 degrees (16.52 Celsius) was .09 degrees (.05 Celsius) warmer than the old August record set last year, and was the 16th consecutive month of record-breaking heat. NOAA monitoring chief Deke Arndt said it was also the hottest summer, with 2016 on pace to smash last year's record for the hottest year.

August 2016 was also 1.66 degrees (0.92 Celsius) warmer than the 20th-century average. It was the fifth hottest month of any kind recorded, going back to 1880. Six of the 17 hottest months on record have been the summer months of 2015 and 2016.

FILE - In this Dec. 16, 2015 file photo, professor Stephen Hawking listens to a news conference in London. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2016, said that August¿s temperature of 61.74 degrees (16.52 Celsius) was the 16th month in a row that Earth set a record for the hottest month. NOAA monitoring chief Deke Arndt said it was also the hottest summer, with 2016 on pace to smash last year¿s record for the hottest year. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File)

The June-through-August summer was 2.18 degrees (1.21 Celsius) warmer than the 20th-century average and beat the old summer heat record, set last year, by one-fifth of a degree (0.11 Celsius), NOAA said.

"The needle has been shoved all the way over into the red by greenhouse gases," Arndt said.

NOAA's announcement came on a day when 375 members of the National Academy of Sciences, including Stephen Hawking and 30 Nobel laureates, released an open letter urging American leaders not to pull out of an international agreement to curb global warming.

Organizer and MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel said the scientists wrote the letter in response to the Republican party platform that rejects the Paris climate agreement reached last December. The letter said presidential nominee Donald Trump's advocacy of withdrawing from that agreement would "send a clear signal to the rest of the world: The United States does not care about the global problem of human-caused climate change."

Pulling out of the Paris accord, Emanuel said, "will accelerate our head-long plunge into a riskier and riskier climate."

"Everywhere we look we see signs that the climate really is changing," Emanuel said. "We're getting wake-up calls more frequently and we really have to do something about this."</s>The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday said August’s temperature of 61.74 degrees was .09 degrees warmer than the old August record set last year, and was the 16th consecutive month of record-breaking heat. NOAA monitoring chief Deke Arndt said it was also the hottest summer, with 2016 on pace to smash last year’s record for the hottest year.

August 2016 was also 1.66 degrees warmer than the 20th-century average. It was the fifth hottest month of any kind recorded, going back to 1880. Six of the 17 hottest months on record have been the summer months of 2015 and 2016.

The June-through-August summer was 2.18 degrees (1.21 Celsius) warmer than the 20th-century average and beat the old summer heat record, set last year, by one-fifth of a degree (0.11 Celsius), NOAA said.

“The needle has been shoved all the way over into the red by greenhouse gases,” Arndt said.

NOAA’s announcement came on a day when 375 members of the National Academy of Sciences, including Stephen Hawking and 30 Nobel laureates, released an open letter urging American leaders not to pull out of an international agreement to curb global warming.

Organizer and MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel said the scientists wrote the letter in response to the Republican party platform that rejects the Paris climate agreement reached last December. The letter said presidential nominee Donald Trump’s advocacy of withdrawing from that agreement would “send a clear signal to the rest of the world: The United States does not care about the global problem of human-caused climate change.”

Pulling out of the Paris accord, Emanuel said, “will accelerate our head-long plunge into a riskier and riskier climate.”

“Everywhere we look we see signs that the climate really is changing,” Emanuel said. “We’re getting wake-up calls more frequently and we really have to do something about this.”
August 2016 becomes the world's hottest on record (since records began 136 years ago) and 16th 'hottest on record' month in a row.