FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

​You Just Lived Through the Hottest Month in Recorded History. Again.

July 2015 was the hottest month Earth has seen since record-keeping began, according to three of the world's biggest temperature-checkers.
Image: NOAA

Congratulations, you've just lived through the hottest month ever recorded. (Yes, another one.) According to NASA, the Japan Meteorological Agency, and, now, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), July 2015 was the hottest month registered on the planet since record-keeping began.

"The July average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.46°F (0.81°C) above the 20th century average," NOAA reports. "As July is climatologically the warmest month for the year, this was also the all-time highest monthly temperature in the 1880–2015 record, at 61.86°F (16.61°C), surpassing the previous record set last year in 2014 by 0.14°F (0.08°C)." Emphasis mine.

The heat was especially scorching around the Equator, in the oceans, in parts of Asia, and in Southern Europe.

The most remarkable thing about this is how unremarkable it is—temperatures are climbing so rapidly and reliably that we see a new "hottest month ever recorded" every other year or so. Last year was the hottest year on record, and NASA scientists say 2015 is poised to be another. NOAA has already confirmed that the January-July period thus far is the hottest such period yet.

It's been more than 30 years since the world has seen a colder-than-average month. Get ready to live through plenty more record-breakingly hot ones.