The past month was the hottest June on record since statistics started being kept in 1880, and the first six months of 2015 have seen record warmth,
reported the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information said the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.58 degrees above the 20th century average. That increase beat last year's record by 0.22 degrees,
according to center's statistics.
The report said the average Arctic sea ice extent for June was 7.7 percent (350,000 square miles) below the 1981-2010 average. The said it was the third smallest June ice extent since records began in 1979, according to an analysis by the National Snow and Ice Data Center using data from NOAA and NASA.
Antarctic sea ice, though, during June was 380,000 square miles or 7.2 percent above the 1981–2010 average. It was the third largest June Antarctic sea ice extent on record, yet 140,000 square miles smaller than the record-large June extent of 2014, according to NOAA.
"With the one of the strongest El Ninos in modern record expected to only strengthen and persist the rest of the year, 2015 may top last year's record warmth,"
said Weather.com's Jon Erdman.
"El Nino doesn't guarantee that happening, but it's worth pointing out the previous two record warm years in NASA's dataset prior to last year, 2010 and 2005, both featured El Ninos that ended early in the year, rather than persisting through an entire year," said Erdman.
According to Jeff Masters, of the website the
Weather Underground, a heatwave in Pakistan killed 1,242 people, making it the worst June for deaths there since 1991 when 523 died because of the heat.
Masters said the Pakistan deaths would rank as the eighth deadliest heatwaves in history internationally. India's May heatwave that killed 2,500 people ranked as the fifth most deadly heatwave in history, just missing its national high of 2,541 set in 1998.
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