July 2016 Was Earth's Warmest Month on Record

August 17,2016
Global mean temperatures in July 2016 were the warmest on record not just for July, but for any month dating to the late 1800s, according to four separate newly-released analyses.
A state of the climate report issued by NOAA Wednesday said that July 2016 was Earth's warmest month in records dating to 1880.
The average temperature for the globe was 0.87 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average. This beat the previous warmest month on record set in July 2015 which was 0.81 degrees Celsius above average.
(MORE: Record Heat Trouncing Cold Records 4 to 1)
July is typically the warmest month of the year globally because the Northern Hemisphere has more land masses than the Southern Hemisphere. Land can heat faster and further than the ocean can, so the Southern Hemisphere cannot get as warm as easily in their summer.
NOAA said that July 2016 also marked the 15th consecutive warmest month on record for the globe. That is the longest stretch of months in a row that a global temperature record has been set in their dataset.

The darkest red shaded areas show where the earth was record warm January-July 2016.
(NOAA)

Given that the first seven months of 2016 have all been record warm, the planet has also had its warmest January-July on record. Parts of Africa, North America, South America, Asia, Europe and Australia had a record warm January-July in 2016.
This year will likely end up being the earth's warmest year on record, topping both 2015 and 2014.

Three More Agencies Confirm Earth's Warmest Month Was July 2016

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies also found July 2016 was the globe's warmest July in their dataset dating to 1880.
(RECAP: February 2016 Was Earth's Most Anomalously Warm Month on Record)

July 2016 temperature anomalies (degrees Celsius) relative to a 1981-2010 average period.
(NASA-GISS)

The temperature anomaly of 0.84 degrees Celsius above average topped the previous warmest July in 2011 by 0.1 degree, according to NASA's analysis released Monday.
This marked the tenth straight month setting a warm record for that month in NASA's analysis.

The Japanese Meteorological Agency found July 2016 topped 2015 as the globe's warmest July dating to 1891.

July global temperature anomalies (degrees Celsius) relative to a 1981-2010 average since 1891. The blue line is a five-year running mean while the red line is the long-term trend.

Three of the top four warmest Julys on record have occurred in the past three years, according to the JMA analysis.
Since May 2015, 14 of 15 months have either tied or set new records for that month in the JMA dataset. Only May 2016 (second warmest) failed to do so.

July 2016 surface temperature anomalies relative to 1981-2010 average.

Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), operated by the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), calculated the global average July temperature was nearly one-fifth of a degree Celsius higher than previous July temperature records set in 2015 and in 2009, in their dataset dating to 1979.
Compared to the July average, the south-central part of the United States including Texas and into northern Mexico were the most anomalously warm for North America.
(MORE: Hottest Temperatures in All 50 States)
Globally, portions of western Russia and the Southern Ocean were warmest compared to average.
In Russia, fires and an anthrax outbreak have been blamed on warmer than average temperatures.
This is not to say that this is the warmest the Earth has ever been, but it is the warmest since we humans have been recording temperatures. Some locations on Earth may still be cooler than average.
Both NASA and NOAA found 2015 was the globe's warmest year in their databases.
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