With Summer's Unequalled Warmth, 2014 is Likely to Finish as the Warmest Year on Record for the Home Planet

Towering, glacier-carved peaks loom over the sea in the Lofoten Islands near Svolvær, Norway in this iPhone photomosaic of four images captured on September 11, 2014. This part of the Arctic experienced its warmest summer on record. (Photomosaic: ©Tom Yulsman) August and the summer of 2014 have both gone down in the books as the warmest such periods since modern record keeping began in 1880, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced.