March sets heat record and 2015 could be hottest ever

March 2015 was easily the hottest on record and the period from January-to-March has also broken heat records, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The NOAA’s latest monthly report shows that March 2015 was the hottest in their 135-years of keeping records, beating the 2010 record by 0.05°C.

January-to-March was not only the hottest start to any year on record, but also beat the record set in 2002 by 0.05°C.

The report indicates that March was so warm that only two other months on record have had a higher “departure from average” level; February 1998 and January 2007, which only beat March by “just 0.01°C”.

The findings also suggest that Arctic sea ice hit its minimum March extent since records began in 1979.

The report warns that the trend of anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change that made 2014 the hottest year on record is continuing and a widely anticipated jump in global temperatures could be underway.

The new findings have been backed up by NASA who also reported last week that 2015 saw the hottest three-month start of any year on record.

The Japan Meteorological Agency also found that March was the warmest on record with NASA’s research ranking it the third warmest.

The three agencies use slightly different methods for recording global temperature, leading to slightly different results, but they all suggest the same long-term warming trend driven by greenhouse gas emissions.

It is increasingly likely that 2015 will be the hottest year on record, with the NOAA predicting there’s a 60 per cent chance the El Niño it declared last month will continue all year.

El Niños typically lead to global temperature records, as the short-term El Niño warming adds to the underlying long-term global warming trend.