Don’t adjust your sets: July was world’s warmest month ever

July was the world’s warmest month ever in records going back to 1880, the National Centers for Environmental Information said.

Combined land and sea temperatures were 0.81 degrees above the 20th century average, according to a statement from the center in Asheville, North Carolina.

The monthly average temperature broke the mark set in 1998. “As July is climatologically the warmest month for the year, this was also the all-time highest monthly temperature in the 1880-2015 record,” said the centre. In addition to setting a record for July, the first seven months of 2015 were the warmest ever, breaking the mark set in 2010.

Last year holds the current record for hottest 12 months. The continually rising temperatures seen since the start of the 21st century should dispel any idea that there has been a hiatus in global warming, said Jessica Blunden, a climatologist at the centre.

“There isn’t a pause,” she added. “Temperatures have been increasing. There really, truly isn’t a pause.”

There is natural variability in temperatures from year to year, but the overall trend is up, said Ms Blunden. Climate change sceptics have said that the climb in world temperatures levelled off since 1998.

Record Year

Blunden said she is “99 per cent” sure 2015 will be the hottest year on record. The only way that won’t happen is if the oceans cool significantly, and that isn’t likely, she said.

The temperatures are sending the world a message that it’s time to start looking at how to deal with the warmer planet, said Jake Crouch, physical scientist at the centre. “It’s reaffirming what we already know: the world is warming,” said Crouch. “It’s time for us to start looking at what are the impacts of that.”

The centre’s monthly analysis showed Austria had its warmest July in records going back to 1767, said Crouch.

Heat waves also gripped parts of the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden and France, which experienced its third-hottest July. In the Arctic, sea ice for July was 350,000sq miles, or the eighth-smallest extent since records began in 1979.

Conversely, in Antarctica, where it is winter, sea ice grew to its fourth-largest mass ever.