February 2016 breaks past records for average temperature

February this year was the hottest February so far since the time record-keeping started. Climatologists have called global warming and an El Niño weather event in the Pacific, responsible for the rise in the temperature in February 2016.

As per NASA-released data, February’s average worldwide temperature was 1.35 degrees Celsius, or 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit, higher compared to normal for February. The margin has been recorded as the largest ever recorded one for any month opposite to a baseline of 1951 to 1980.

David Carlson, director of the World Climate Research Programme at the UN's World Meteorological Organization, said, “I think even the hard-core climate people are looking at this and saying: 'What on Earth? It's startling. It's definitely a changed planet ... It makes us nervous about the long-term impact”.

Climate scientists have expressed shock after going through the data released by NASA. Jeff Masters and Bob Henson, meteorologists at Weather Underground, said that the result has come up as a big shock. They said that it is yet another reminder of the continuous long-term increase in global temperature resulting due to human activity-produced greenhouse gases.

Professor Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, also tweeted about the temperature measurements for February this year.

The year 2014 was Earth’s hottest year, but that record has been shattered already by 2015. As per data, 2015 has become the hottest year on record. According to experts, 2016 can possibly break this recently set record by becoming the hottest year since recordkeeping started.

Last year in December, 195 countries worldwide agreed upon a climate deal in Paris to cut the emission of greenhouse gases to a net zero by the year 2100. The countries have decided to shift from fossil fuels to greener energies such as wind and solar power. The Paris deal also decided to maintain rise in global temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius every year.