World heat record broken two months in row

WASHINGTON – The globe is on a hot streak, setting a heat record in June. That’s after the world broke a record in May.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday that last month’s average global temperature was 61.2 degrees, which is 1.3 degrees higher than the 20th century average. It beat 2010’s old record by one-twentieth of a degree.

While one-twentieth of a degree doesn’t sound like much, in temperature records it’s like winning a horse race by several lengths, said NOAA climate monitoring chief Derek Arndt.

And that’s only part of it. The world’s oceans not only broke a monthly heat record at 62.7 degrees, but it was the hottest the oceans have been on record no matter what the month, Arndt said.

“We are living in the steroid era of the climate system,” Arndt said.

Arndt said both the June and May records were driven by unusually hot oceans, especially the Pacific and Indian oceans.