MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

July was the northern hemisphere hottest month in history of record- keeping

July 2016 was 1.57° F above the 20th-century average, breaking last year’s record for the warmest July on record by 0.11° F, according to scientists from NOAA

July is typically the hottest month for the globe in the northern hemisphere, and last month didn’t disappoint. But this time around, it was not only the hottest July on record, but the hottest month in the history of record-keeping.

 July 2016 was 1.57° F above the 20th-century average, breaking last year’s record for the warmest July on record by 0.11° F, according to scientists from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information.

The report from the NOAA followed the US space agency NASA releasing its climate data, which also found July was a record-breaking month.

July’s global average of temperatures taken over land and ocean surfaces were the highest for any month in the NOAA global temperature data set record, which dates back to 1880.

It also marked the 15th month in a row to break a monthly temperature record, “the longest such streak in the 137-year record”, the NOAA added.

For the year to date, the average global temperature was 1.85° F above the 20th-century average.

The first seven months of 2016 were characterized by warmer to much-warmer-than-average conditions across most of the world’s land and ocean surfaces.

Record warmth was widespread across Alaska, western Canada, southern Mexico, Central America, northern South America, central and southwestern Africa, Indonesia, northern and eastern Australia, the Indian Ocean, and across parts of north-central Russia, western Asia, the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, the southwestern Pacific Ocean, and the northwestern Atlantic Ocean.