Earth smashes record for heat in May

Driven by exceptionally warm ocean waters, Earth smashed a record for heat in May and is likely to keep on breaking high temperature marks, US experts say.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said May’s average temperature on Earth of 15.54C (59.93F) beat the old record set four years ago.

In April, the globe tied the 2010 high for that month, in records going back to 1880.

May was especially hot in parts of Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Spain, South Korea and Australia. The United States was not close to a record, being barely warmer than the 20th century average.

Georgia Tech climate scientist Kim Cobb and other experts said there is a good chance global heat records will keep being broken, especially next year because an El Nino weather event is brewing on top of man-made global warming.

An El Nino is a warming of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean that alters climate worldwide and usually raises global temperatures.

Ocean temperatures in May set a record for the month, but an El Nino is not considered in effect until the warm water changes the air and that has not happened yet, the NOAA said.

With the El Nino on top of higher temperatures from heat-trapping greenhouse gases, “we will see temperature records fall all over the world”, wrote Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann.

May was 0.74C (1.33F) warmer than the 20th century world average. The last month that was cooler than normal was February 1985, marking 351 hotter than average months in a row.

This “should remind everyone that global warming is a long-term trend”, Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer said.