ORLANDO, Fla. – As the Earth orbits the sun and the seasons change, the planet continues to run warmer than normal. After experiencing its fifth warmest September on record, the Earth is once again breaking records for the month of October.
After averaging highs and low temperatures over land and sea, the temperature hit 57.2 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.60 degrees above normal, making it the fourth warmest October worldwide.
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And this is not a random occurrence, as the last eight Octobers all rank among the top eight warmest Octobers on record.
The abnormally warm trend was led by the Northern Hemisphere, which includes North America with the second-warmest October, South America with its third warmest, and Africa seeing their seventh warmest October on record.
Annually, globally the Earth is on track to logging their sixth warmest year on record, with the average temperature running 1.51 degrees above the average of 57.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
With all this built-up heat across the globe, sea ice coverage took another hit, with the Arctic ice extent at about 61,000 square miles below average, and Antarctica’s coverage at 180,000 square miles below normal. At this point, we’ve only seen three Octobers with small sea ice extent on record.