Another month, another shattered global temperature record.

 

According to preliminary readings from NASA, May 2016 was the warmest such month on record for the planet, dating back to 1880. Global average surface temperatures were 0.93 degrees Celsius, or 1.67 degrees Fahrenheit, above average for the month, beating out the old record, which was set in May 2014.

 

This makes May the 8th straight warmest month on record in NASA's database.

 

If the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also ranks May as the warmest such month, it would make it the 13th straight warmest month in NOAA's records, which has never happened before. (Although the two agencies use similar data, they differ in how they analyze global temperature measurements.)

 

Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York has already predicted that 2016 will be the warmest year on record, beating the record set in 2015. Scientists at NOAA have also said such a record is likely this year. (Mashable)