April’s Temperatures Broke Records For The 12th Consecutive Month

Hmmm…this is starting to look like a pattern. Just like the past March, February, January, December, November, October, September, August, July, June, and May, NOAA reported this week that this past April was not only the hottest April ever recorded since records began being kept in 1880 but it was also the 12th month in a row to break a temperature record.

The average global temperature across both land and seas during April was 1.98°F higher than the 20th century average. In the Northern Hemisphere (where spring had just begun) the snow cover was the smallest April snow cover extent in the 50-year period of record, and 890,000 square miles below the 1981 to 2010 average.

The data is the latest evidence that really, researchers, governments, and environmental advocates are “not f***ing with you” about climate change.

In addition to the monthly Global State Of The Climate report that was just released for April, today, NOAA released its Annual Greenhouse Gas Index. It found that in 2015 the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere reached 399 parts per million (ppm), an increase from the 278 ppm that the atmosphere contained before the industrial revolution.

“We’re dialing up Earth’s thermostat in a way that will lock more heat into the ocean and atmosphere for thousands of years,” Jim Butler, director of NOAA’s Global Monitoring Division said.

With the recent year-long string of records culminating in April’s latest, it’s clear the heat is on.