April Was Second Hottest Month In 137 Years

NASA reported that April 2017 was the second warmest recorded in 137 years. The global temperature was 0.88 degree Celsius above the average for the month between 1951 and 1980. The only hotter month was last year's record of 1.06 degrees warmer than the average.

A map of readings taken in 6,300 different places from around the world showed strong warmings of up to 5 degrees Celsius in northwestern Canada, Alaska and much of Siberia. Northern China and Mongolia also experience higher than usual temperatures.
However, not the entire world experienced warmer temperatures.

According to Independent, places like the Antarctic, parts of southeast Asia and northeast Canada felt cooler than usual. In a statement from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies noted that April 2017 was the second warmest April in 137 years of record keeping. April 2016 was the hottest on record, meaning that the two top April temperature anomalies occured in the past two years.

This new finding illustrates just how much the planet is still setting climate milestones. It also makes it clear that human-caused global warming has a massive effect to the planet's climate.

Mashable also reported that the Arctic sea ice is now tied for the lowest level on record for the month of April, with record lows throughout the fall and winter months. Sea ice covers have been declining since satellites started keeping tabs in 1970, and they are now thinner than ever as the summer season arrives. Because of the lack of older, thicker ice (which has a higher chance of surviving the summer heat), it is likely that another record low ice caps could be seen by the end of the melt season this September.

While few scientists believe that 2017 will set another record as the warmest year, it is likely that the heat will still rank in the top 5 or top 10 warmest years to ever be recorded.