First six months of 2016 break global temperature records

The sixth-month period from January to June 2016 was the warmest such stretch in the planet’s history, and each individual month set a new record as the warmest respective month globally in the modern temperature record, a team of NASA scientists revealed on Tuesday.

Those two records are among several climate-related high established so far this year, according to a new analysis of ground-based observations and satellite data conducted by researchers at the US space agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

As the modern temperature record dates back to 1880, that means that every month of this year so far has been the hottest in more than 130 years, and the six-month period ending in June was an average of 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the late 19th century.

Furthermore, analyses developed by scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland found that five of the first six months of 2016 established new records for the smallest respective monthly sea ice extent since consistent satellite data was first collected back in 1979. March was the lone exception, as only the second smallest extend was observed for that month.

Record low sea ice extents recorded in the Arctic region as well

Although the new records set in these two important climate-related categories will garner a lot of attention, NASA scientists emphasized that it was “more significant” that global temperatures and Arctic sea ice levels are continuing to change, as they have been for decades. Those changes, the agency claimed, are due to increased levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Currently, the extent of sea ice in the Arctic during the peak of the region’s summer melt season covers an average of 40% less area than it did during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and during the month of September (the seasonal low point in the annual cycle), the extend is declining at a rate of more than 13% per decade, the GISS and Goddard researchers reported Tuesday.

“It has been a record year so far for global temperatures, but the record high temperatures in the Arctic over the past six months have been even more extreme,” Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist at NASA Goddard, said in a statement. “This warmth as well as unusual weather patterns have led to the record low sea ice extents so far this year.”

The new observations are part of the agency’s ongoing effort to investigate the Earth and to learn more about how the planet we call home is changing. NASA is currently involved in 19 different space-based, Earth-monitoring missions, and it also uses aircraft to conduct measurements of the Arctic sea ice cap surface as part of its long-running Operation IceBridge campaign. Researchers from the agency are also working in the Arctic region to learn more about what is causing sea ice melt to increase, as well as the impact of warmer conditions on that area’s ecosystems.

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Image credit: NASA/GISS

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