The Planet Just Had Its Hottest October On Record

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/11/14/3592424/hottest-october-on-record/

by Joe Romm Posted on November 14, 2014

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) reports that last month was the hottest October in more than 120 years of record-keeping — by far. This follows the hottest September, August, June, and March-May in JMA’s records! Projections by NOAA make clear 2014 is increasingly likely to be hottest year on record.

And these records occurred despite the fact we’re still waiting for the start of El Niño. 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.

The JMA is a World Meteorological Organization Regional Climate Center of excellence. NASA reported Friday very similar observations. In the NASA dataset, last month was tied for hottest October on record with 2005.

In this country, temperatures were quite hot in the West, and the fourth-warmest on record for the lower 48. Here is the NASA chart for global temperatures last month:

[See link above for charts]

For the third month in a row, it was so hot over West Antarctica, that NASA had to put in the color brown to cover the anomalous warmth — 4°C to 5.5°C (7°F to 10°F).

Sure, recent studies have found that the huge glaciers in the West Antarctic ice sheet “have begun the process of irreversible collapse,” and “many of the world’s coastal cities would eventually have to be abandoned” if that continues — but hey that’s our grandkids’ problem, isn’t it?