Last month was the hottest August, ever on record

Another record month, again emphasizing
the need for an emergency response.

August 2016 was the warmest August in 136 years of modern record-keeping, according to a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

Although the seasonal temperature cycle typically peaks in July, August 2016 wound up tied with July 2016 for the warmest month ever recorded. August 2016's temperature was 0.16 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous warmest August in 2014. Last month also was 0.98 degrees Celsius warmer than the mean August temperature from 1951-1980.

"Monthly rankings, which vary by only a few hundredths of a degree, are inherently fragile," said GISS Director Gavin Schmidt. "We stress that the long-term trends are the most important for understanding the ongoing changes that are affecting our planet."

Read the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)  story -“NASA Analysis Finds August 2016 Another Record Month.”

Malcolm Roberts leaves NASA 'flummoxed' with Q&A claims

NASA boss, Gavin Schmidt.

It probably takes a lot to faze Gavin Schmidt, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, but the outlandish views of Malcolm Roberts, the newly elected One Nation senator, can do it from half a world away.

On Monday night's Q&A program on the ABC, Roberts was venting his now well-worn view that there was no empirical evidence of climate change.

Read Peter Hannam’s story in the Melbourne Age - “Malcolm Roberts leaves NASA 'flummoxed' with Q&A climate claims.”

World is not cooling, rather, we will 'vault' over 2015 record: NASA

No, the world is not cooling.

This year will vault over 2015 and set a new record for warm temperatures, NASA scientists said yesterday.

The average temperatures for the first half of this year are "so in excess" that it is worthy of note, said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

"2015 was also a very warm year, but 2016 has blown that out of the water," he said.

About 40 percent of the warmth this year is due to an El Niño, a circulation pattern that had elevated temperatures around the world and is just dying down. The rest of warmth is due to multiple factors, including very strong warming in the Arctic and human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, Schmidt said.

Read the ClimateWire story by E&E reporter, Gayathri Vaidyanathan  - “NASA scientists on 'cooling': Nope.”