Earth witnesses hottest August ever recorded

Last month earned the title of warmest ever August on Earth since 1880, when record-keeping began, scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York announced in a press release on Monday. The findings come soon after NASA branded July 2016 both the hottest ever July and the hottest ever month on record.

August 2016 was 0.16 degrees Celsius warmer than the last hottest August which took place recently, in 2014. Last month’s temperatures were also 0.98 degrees Celsius warmer than the mean August temperature from 1951-1980, scientists said.

What is more, August 2016 managed to tie with July as the hottest month on record. August is also the 11th consecutive month during which global temperatures have broken all records, scientists pointed out, adding that the trend goes all the way back to October 2015.

Scientists said that long-term trends are the key to understanding the changes taking place on our planet.

“Monthly rankings, which vary by only a few hundredths of a degree, are inherently fragile,” said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt. “We stress that the long-term trends are the most important for understanding the ongoing changes that are affecting our planet.”

To carry out its monthly analysis NASA collects data from some 6,300 meteorological stations around the world, ship- and buoy-based instruments measuring sea surface temperature, and Antarctic research stations.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will announce its own August data later this month. Last month NOAA said that July 2016 was the 14th consecutive month with record high temperatures. April 2015 was the last month when the Earth did not encounter any record high temperatures.

READ MORE: Global temperatures set 14th consecutive monthly record

An upward trend in global temperatures has been noticed since 2014. Last year was considered the hottest on record surpassing its previous rival – 2014. This year is thought to have every chance of beating 2015, as the first six months of this year were all record warm.

NASA chief climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said earlier that 2016 has a 99 percent chance of being a third record hot year in a row. Last month he warned that the average temperature of Earth is rising at a pace “unprecedented in 1,000 years”.