May Continues a Ridiculous Warm Streak for the Planet

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/may-warm-streak-planet-21542

Brian Kahn By Brian Kahn
May 15, 2017

Another month is in the global temperature record books. While May just missed setting a record, the data is another reminder that climate change is making the world hotter and pushing it into a new state.

This May was the second-warmest May on record, according to NASA data released on Thursday. The planet was 1.6°F (0.88°C) warmer than normal last month, trailing 2016 by just a 10th of a degree.

Widespread hot spots stretched from pole to pole, showing no corner of the globe is untouched by the impact of rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Temperatures soared up to 13.8°F (7.1°C) above normal in parts of Antarctica while a wide swath of heat cooked northern Africa and western Europe.

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warmer-than-normal conditions have become the new normal. The NASA data uses 1951-1980 as the average temperature measuring stick. You’d have to look back to July 1985 to find a cooler than normal month.

Using 1881-1910 as a measuring stick is a more telling measure of how much the climate has changed. Using that baseline means you’d have to go all the way back to December 1964 to find a month that was chillier than normal.

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