Mercury rising: Earth smashes record, has hottest May since 1880

Driven by exceptionally warm ocean waters, Earth smashed a record for heat in May and is likely to keep on breaking high-temperature marks, U.S. experts say. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Monday said May’s average temperature on Earth of 15.54 degrees Celsius beat the old record set four years ago. In April, the globe tied the 2010 record for that month. Records go back to 1880.

We will see temperature records fall all over the world.

Michael Mann, Pennsylvania State University climate scientist

Georgia Tech climate scientist Kim Cobb and other experts say there’s a good chance global heat records will keep falling, 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 spikes global temperatures. May was 0.74 degrees Celsius 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.

Science el nino