By In its latest global climate report, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that July was the 14th straight month of record-breaking heat. That, in and of itself, is a new record.
In the last 175 years, there has been only one other hot streak that comes close in terms of longevity. According to NOAA, the second longest hot streak on record spanned the 12 months from May 2015 to May 2016 (SN: 1/20/16; SN: 1/14/21). Then things drop off: The third and fourth longest recorded streaks were six months each, and subsequent stints are shorter still.
Many of these streaks occurred during an El Niño, a natural phenomenon in which warm surface waters spread across the tropical Pacific Ocean, temporarily elevating the global average temperature (SN: 8/21/19). Its cyclical counterpart, La Niña, involves those warm surface waters receding to the western side of the Pacific, causing a transient global cooling effect.
