According to NASA data, not only was last month the hottest July on record, it was also the hottest month ever on record. That means 2016 is still on the path to becoming the hottest year on record. Andrea Thompson from Climate Central reports:
In NOAA’s records, the streak of hottest months goes back to May 2015. If July is record warm in its data (which will be released Wednesday, July will be the 15th record-warm month in a row.
By NASA’s reckoning, July 2016 was 1.27˚F (0.84˚C) hotter than the 1951-1980 average. It was 0.2˚F (0.11˚C) above July 2015, the next warmest July in records that go back to 1880. The record July heat also means this was the hottest month the planet has seen over the course of NASA's records. That's because July is also generally the hottest month of the year due the fact that it's summer in the northern hemisphere where there's more land.
El Niño, which scientists say ended in June, gave a big boost to this year’s excessive heat, but heat trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases is the larger culprit.
July was the 10th consecutive record hot month. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which will announce its calculations on Wednesday, figures that there have been 14 consecutive heat records before July.
The five hottest months in the 136-year record, according to NASA are, respectively: July 2016, July 2011, July 2015, July 2009 and August 2014. Only July 2015 was during an El Niño.
Chris Field, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University, said, "The scary thing is that we are moving into an era where it will be a surprise when each new month or year isn't one of the hottest on record."
“Scary” doesn’t quite catch it.