After an unconventionally warm December that was slightly less than 2 F (1.11 C) hotter than normal, January finished with an average temperature slightly more than 2 F (1.13 C) hotter than average, according to Climate Central. This is the fourth straight month that temperatures have been more than 1.8 F (1 C) above average.
This comes on the heels of 2015 being the world's hottest year on record, breaking the previous record set in 2014 by 0.23 F (0.13 C), according to data collected by Climate Central. Normally, the El Niño event can bring warmer temperatures, but it only packs the punch to raise the global temperature about 0.2 C - much lower than the 1.11 C heat jump that January experienced, reported The Sydney Morning Herald.
With climate change creeping up on the planet and temperatures consistently rising, climate scientists are indicating that there is cause for concern.
"The record is helped along a bit by El Niño, but most of it - more than 80 percent - is due to human-caused global warming," said Stefan Rahmstorf, a researcher from Germany's Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research, reported The Sydney Morning Herald.
NASA's data shows that January wasn't just record warm, but it was the most abnormally warm month in history since record keeping began 136 years ago. NASA's map shows much of the the planet was marked in red to indicate warmth, to the point where there are less places where it wasn't abnormally warm. The concerning part of the map is the Arctic, where some parts were up to 23 F hotter than normal for all of January, per NASA.
This extreme heat caused the Arctic sea ice to hit a record low, the extent of it being 42,5000 square miles below the previous record, reported Mashable. The amount of ice lost equates to an area roughly the size of Texas, New Mexico, Maryland and New Hampshire - combined.
February is continuing the trend, especially in the Arctic, with no signs of letting up except for a brief blast of extreme cold in the Northeast U.S. last weekend. Per projections, 2016 is expected to continue the trend of record-breaking heat, according to the U.K. Met Office on weather and climate change.
