at 3:15 PM by Mallory Schnell

99.9% Assurance 2015 Will Be Warmest Year on Record

With the release of the October 2015 monthly climate report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2015 is set to be the warmest year on record. In October alone, the average temperature over land and water combined was the highest for October in the 136-year period of record, at 0.98°C (1.76°F) above the 20th century average of 14.0°C (57.1°F). 

climate
via NOAA

Individually, the average global land surface temperature was 1.33°C (2.39°F) above the 20th century average; the average global sea surface temperature was 0.85°C (1.53°F) above the 20th century average of 15.9°C (60.6°F). Both of these values surpass the previous highest departures on record – and there have been 1630 months of recordkeeping. (NOAA)

Eight out of ten months in 2015 have been the warmest on record, with October coming in as the sixth consecutive month a record has been broken. With  El Niño expected to peak during the Northern Hemisphere winter, and 2015’s lead over 2014 being greater than the dataset’s uncertainty, 2015 is on track to become the warmest year on record.