Earth just experienced its hottest month

The Earth's climate just got hotter and the records are now themselves breaking records. August was the hottest year experienced on Earth according to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

This means the planet has set a record warm monthly temperature during every month for the past 16 consecutive months -  an unprecedented warm streak, according to NOAA. The year 2016 has also been a record warm, as was the period from June through August.



Findings released this week show that the globally averaged surface temperature for August was 0.92 degrees Celsius, or 1.66 degrees Fahrenheit which is above the 20th century average of 15.6 degrees Celsius, or 60.1 degrees Fahrenheit. This surpassed all August temperatures dating back to 1880.

MAGE: GAVIN SCHMIDT VIA NASA AND CLIMATE CENTRAL

The featured data includes months that have broken previous records, with 14 of the 15 highest monthly temperature departures from average occurring since February 2015.

Further data released by NOAA found that record warmth during the first eight months of the streak occurred across much of the globe including northern South America, central and southern Africa, Indonesia, western Canada, northern and southern Asia and Australia. There wasn't a single region that saw cooler-than-average conditions during the January to August period.

"Something that gets lost in the monthly updates to this streak of record-breaking months is the magnitude of change compared to just a couple decades ago," Derek Arndt, chief of climate monitoring at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information said.



"Sure, we've broken the record 16 consecutive months, that is evidence that we are in a warm surge following decades of warming. But the magnitude is immense: twenty years ago, in 1996, no year had poked above half a degree Celsius warmer than the 20th century average. Now, we're at a degree above the average. We've doubled that difference in half a generation."

With increasing warmth and temperatures, flood disasters have been experienced in many parts of the world - the most recent being the Louisiana floods and the flooding in parts of China. Countries known for their hot climates including India, Kuwait and Iraq have also set benchmarks for what constitutes their hottest days.

Meanwhile, the world's oceans have also been suffering through the longest-lasting global coral bleaching event on record, which is now expected to last into 2017.Arctic sea ice also hit the second-lowest level on record which is causing the trend to surge further toward  a seasonally ice-free Arctic.

IMAGE: NOAA/NCEI

Further, NASA has also said that it is virtually certain that 2016 will be the hottest year to date, beating last year's milestone.

Although part of the warmth is due to an El Niño event in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which tends to boost global average temperatures, that event has subsided; yet warm records have continued to topple. This points as evidence towards human-induced global warming, which has been driving temperatures upward at a faster pace in recent decades.

Data further suggests that it is possible that more monthly temperature records will be set before the end of 2016.

This article originally appeared on Mashable