The global average surface temperature over both the land and ocean for January to October 2014 was the highest ever recorded.
According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data, January was the hottest on record and October 2014 was the warmest seen since the year 1880, the World Meteorological Organization reported.
The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature of 1.22 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average of 57.4 degrees Fahrenheit. For only October it was 1.33 degrees over the global 20th century average of 57.1 degrees Fahrenheit.
The exceptionally warm October was relatively evenly distributed across the northern and southern hemisphere, but it was only the third warmest October seen in the northern hemisphere while in the south it was number one.
This year has broken an unusal number of climate records; October was the fifth consecutive month and fifth of the most recent six had a record high for that particular month. The Tokyo Climate Center, which is a WMO Regional Climate Centre, and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies also reported this October was the hottest on their records.
"WMO uses a combination of datasets to compile its annual Statement on the Status of the Global Climate. Additional information is drawn from the ERA-Interim reanalysis-based data set maintained by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts" the researchers stated.
"These record and near-record warm global sea surface temperatures have all occurred in the absence of El Niño, a large-scale warming of the eastern and central equatorial Pacific Ocean that generally occurs every five to seven years on average," the report stated. "However, there is close to a 60 percent chance for El Niño to officially develop during the Northern Hemisphere winter, according to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. The potential El Niño is favored to be weak and last into Northern Hemisphere spring 2015."
See the full report HERE.
