Hottest 12 Months On Record

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/10/21/3581943/hottest-12-months-on-record/

by Joe Romm Posted on October 21, 2014

Not only did NOAA report Monday that last month was the hottest September on record, but they also pointed out, “The past 12 months—October 2013–September 2014—was the warmest 12-month period among all months since records began in 1880.”

NOAA climatologist Jessica Blunden says “It’s pretty likely” that 2014 will break the record for hottest year.” The AP reports:

Some people, mostly non-scientists, have been claiming that the world has not warmed in 18 years, but “no one’s told the globe that,” Blunden said. She said NOAA records show no pause in warming.

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What’s especially amazing is that 2014 is poised to break the global temperature record despite the fact that it isn’t an El Niño year. It is usually the combination of the underlying long-term warming trend and the regional El Niño warming pattern that leads to new global temperature records, as NASA has explained.

But the underlying trend of human-caused warming is simply too strong to be denied, as it were. If we want to slow it down and ultimately stop it before it destroys a livable climate, we need to slash carbon pollution ASAP.

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