Environment

June 2015: Earth’s Warmest June on Record

June 2015 was Earth's warmest June since global record keeping began in 1880, said NOAA's National Centres for Environmental Information (NCEI) on Monday. NASA also rated June 2015 as the warmest June on record.

A potent El Niño event in the Eastern Pacific that crossed the threshold into the "strong" category in early July continues to intensify, and strong El Niño events release a large amount of heat to the atmosphere, typically boosting global temperatures by at least 0.1°C. This extra bump in temperature, when combined with the long-term warming of the planet due to human-caused emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide, makes it likely that 2015 will be Earth's second consecutive warmest year on record.. Four of the six warmest months in recorded history (for departure from average) have occurred this year, according to NOAA.