It's going to be a long, hot summer: May was hottest EVER for Earth as researchers warn more record breaking months are coming
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Driven by exceptionally warm ocean waters, Earth smashed a record for heat in May and is likely to keep on breaking high temperature marks, experts say.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Monday said May's average temperature on Earth of 59.93 degrees Fahrenheit (15.54 degrees Celsius) beat the old record set four years ago.
However, California is having a record hot first five months of the year, a full 5 degrees above normal.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Monday said May's average temperature on Earth of 59.93 degrees Fahrenheit (15.54 degrees Celsius) beat the old record set four years ago.
WHAT IS EL NINO
El Niño refers to a set of conditions when the surface of the sea in an area along the Equator in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean becomes hotter than usual.
The average water temperature in that area is typically between 1 and 3°C (approximately 2 and 5°F) warmer than normal during this event.
This has the effect of adding huge amounts of heat and moisture into the atmosphere, ultimately affecting patterns of air pressure and rainfall across the Pacific and globally.
Strong El Niño events occur every 20 years or so, but researchers recently said this could drop to 10 years thanks to global warming.
At the opposite end of the scale, La Niña is the climatological counterpart to El Niño.
La Niña refers to periods when sea-surface temperatures around the Equator are cooler than normal.
This has a similar affect on air pressure and rainfall because it suppresses how much heat and moisture enters the atmosphere.
May was especially hot in parts of Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Spain, South Korea and Australia, while the United States was not close to a record, just 1 degree warmer than the 20th century average.
In April, the globe tied the 2010 record for that month. Records go back to 1880.
Georgia Tech climate scientist Kim Cobb and other experts say there's a good chance global heat records will keep falling, especially next year because an El Nino weather event is brewing on top of man-made global warming.
An El Nino is a warming of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean that alters climate worldwide and usually spikes global temperatures.
Ocean temperatures in May also set a record for the month.
But an El Nino isn't considered in effect till the warm water changes the air and that hasn't happened yet, NOAA said.
With the El Nino on top of higher temperatures from heat-trapping greenhouse gases, 'we will see temperature records fall all over the world,' wrote Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann in an email
A mahout and his elephant heading towards the River Tawi on a hot day in Jammu:Large regions across north India have been experiencing a heat wave for days.
May was 1.33 degrees (0.74 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 20th century world average.
The last month that was cooler than normal was February 1985, marking 351 hotter than average months in a row.
This possibly could quiet people claiming global warming has stopped, but more importantly it 'should remind everyone that global warming is a long-term trend,' Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer said.
Setting or tying monthly global heat records has happened frequently in recent years. The last global monthly cold record was set in December 1916.
Spring, which is March through May, was the second warmest on record globally, behind only 2010.
Thijs Talluto, 3, of Los Angeles, cooling-off in a fountain at Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles. U.S: Driven by record warm ocean waters, May's average temperature on Earth of 59.93 degrees Fahrenheit beat the old record set in 2010.
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