January 2015 Continues 2014 Trend

The bad news on the climate front keeps coming in. The National Climatic Data Center released its Global Analysis for January 2015 this morning. Among the highlights (lowlights?) was the statement that January 2015 was the second hottest January on record for combined land and ocean temperature. Only 2007 was hotter. Checking the records shows January last year was the fourth hottest on record, so we are already hotter this year than at the same time last year.

The report also said the ocean temperature was the third highest on record. This was particularly bad because the only two years that were warmer were January 1998 and January 2010, both of which had El Ninos in progress. We are in a neutral ENSO condition right now. The difference in temperature between today and the record set in 1998 is only .06 degrees F (.03 C), which means the normal temperatures of today are nearly the same as the exceptional temperatures of past years.

Let's start the grim count for 2015:

January was the second hottest January on record.

So far, 2015 has one second hottest month ever recorded.



But, let's also take a look at the last 12 months.

For the last 12 months, the tally is:

January 2015 was the second hottest January ever recorded;

December 2014 was the hottest December ever recorded;

November 2014 was the 7th hottest November ever recorded;

October 2014 was the hottest October ever recorded;

September 2014 was the hottest September ever recorded;

August 2014 was the hottest August ever recorded;

July 2014 was the fourth hottest July ever recorded;

June 2014 was the hottest June ever recorded;

May 2014 was the hottest May ever recorded;

April 2014 tied 2010 as the hottest April ever recorded;

March 2014 was the fourth hottest March ever recorded;

February 2014 was the 21st hottest February ever recorded.

So, let's see what the final score was for the last 12 months: one 21st hottest month, one 7th hottest month, two 4th hottest months, one 2nd hottest month and seven hottest months ever.

Additionally, we had the hottest overall year ever recorded in 2014.

This is not a good start to the year.