Now that mainstream media often gives climate change news prominent coverage (it wasn't always so), you may well have heard that NOAA today declared July the hottest month on record.
“In this case, first place is the worst place to be,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad in a statement. “July is typically the world’s warmest month of the year, but July 2021 outdid itself as the hottest July and month ever recorded. This new record adds to the disturbing and disruptive path that climate change has set for the globe.”
But it's probably more accurate to say that by NOAA's reckoning, last month was nominally the warmest July in 142 years of record keeping. That's because it was actually just 0.02 degrees F warmer than July 2016, 2019, and 2020, which previously were in a tie for warmest month.
And just for the record, NASA pegs it the second hottest ...
