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Global Heat trend continues in March

April 18, 2016 at 1:07 am John Englart Leave a comment

Our member David Spratt reports:

Record busting March, start to year

New NASA temperature data shows March 2016 to have been the hottest March on climate record, at 1.28C above the late 20th century baseline (1951-1980) for March.

This was the second highest anomaly in record, just below Feb 2016 and ahead of Jan 2016. So hottest three months on record have been the last three! So we’ve just experienced the hottest 3-month start to any year (set in 2015) by a stunning 0.39°C.

And so far April is running at ~1.2C, so despite signs of El Niño waning, 2016 will push 2015 to be hottest year on instrumental record.

When adjusted for a pre-industrial baseline it indicates that the first 3 months of 2016 are 1.51C above pre-industrial temperatures, with March 1.53C hotter than late nineteenth century.

The record-breaking El Nino has driven up temperatures by about 0.2C, to a mind-blowing set of figures over last year. The NASA temperature data shows last 6 months (compared to 1880-1909 baseline) as

Oct 2015 – 1.31C
Nov – 1.28C
Dec – 1.35C
Jan 2016 – 1.39C
Feb – 1.60C
Mar – 1.53C

Average for first 3 months of this year: 1.51C. Average for last 12 months: 1.22C.

April is currently running ~1.4C but may drop a little due to a possible transition to a La Nina state.

Two other graphs that show the March heat:

Details:
Think Progress: We Just Crushed The Global Record For Hottest Start Of Any Year
HotWhopper: Hottest March on record, tracking El Niño, and a year to date comparison

Entry filed under: climate change info, news.