We're still on track to experience the second or third warmest year globally in records dating back to 1880

A global map from NASA of how Earth's surface temperatures last month departed from the 1951-1980 August average. (Source: NASA GISTEMP. Note: part of Antarctica is gray because data from some stations there were not yet available at the time of this analysis.) Last month was among the very warmest on record, according to two new analyses – and the heat is very likely to continue. With less than four months left to go in 2017, the year will probably come in as second or third warmest on record. Two agencies have produced very slightly different verdicts for this past August. NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies has found that last month was the second warmest August globally in 137 years of modern record-keeping, surpassed only by August 2016. Global temperatures last year received an extra boost from a strong El Niño episode. Meanwhile, NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information ...