Washington: Last month was the warmest September in 136 years of record-keeping, meaning 11 of the past 12 consecutive months dating back to October last year have set new monthly high-temperature records, said Nasa.
According to a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in the US, September 2016’s temperature was a razor-thin 0.004 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous warmest September in 2014.
The margin is so narrow those two months are in a statistical tie. Last month was 0.91 degrees Celsius warmer than the mean September temperature from 1951-1980.
The record-warm September means 11 of the past 12 consecutive months dating back to October 2015 have set new monthly high-temperature records.
The global temperature record begins around 1880 because previous observations did not cover enough of the planet.
