Federal officials say July was Earth's hottest month on record, smashing old marks.
July's average temperature was 61.86 degrees Fahrenheit, beating the previous global mark set in 1998 and 2010 by about one-seventh of a degree. That's a large margin for weather records.
Records go back to 1880, but nine of the 10 hottest months on record have happened since 2005. The first seven months of 2015 are the hottest January-to-July span on record.
The new records are "reaffirming what we already know," Jake Crouch, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate scientist, said during a press call.
"The world is warming, it’s continuing to warm."
Earth's warming is getting a boost this year from an El Nino warming of the Pacific Ocean, Crouch added.
NOAA scientists think it's quite likely that 2015 will end up the hottest year on record, beating last year.
"I think, from my perspective, I would say [I'm] 99% certain that it's going to be the warmest year on record," NOAA climate scientist Jessica Blunden said during the press call.
"For it to change you're going to have to have a big change in the ocean temperature, which we've seen only trending warmer over time."
Earlier this week, preliminary data from NASA — along with information from the Japan Meteorological Administration — suggested that July was the warmest month on record. Now we know for sure.
The hottest July milestone comes as the U.S. government mobilizes military units to help respond to an escalating outbreak of wildfires throughout the West, much of which is tinderbox-dry and scorchingly hot.
Thoughts and prayers are with those affected by the wildfires in the Northwest. pic.twitter.com/q6yqb697bN
— Kjell Lindgren (@astro_kjell) August 17, 2015
California is suffering through its worst drought in a millennium, and its hottest year so far.
Climate studies show that while global warming may not have caused this drought, it likely made it worse by elevating temperatures, which exacerbates evaporation and dries soils out faster.
The July milestone also comes in the midst of a summer of deadly, record-shattering heat around the world, from North America to South Asia.
While heat waves are synonymous with summer, the heat this year has set all-time records — which are rarely eclipsed to the extent that they have been in 2015.
Such temperature records have fallen on several continents. That makes the summer of 2015 stand out from others that featured record-smashing and deadly heat events, such as 2003, when an August heat wave killed more than 40,000 in Europe.
Extreme heat has been blamed for thousands of deaths from India to Egypt, into Europe and west to the Pacific Northwest cities of Seattle and Portland. Even Japan and Hong Kong have set all-time high temperature records and passed historical heat wave markers.
The heat waves began in June before the Indian Monsoon kicked into gear, as high temperatures well into the triple digits Fahrenheit hit India and Pakistan, killing more than 2,000 people.
Madrid, for example, set monthly high temperature records in both June and July, with a record high temperature on July 6 of 103.8 degrees Fahrenheit, or 39.9 degrees Celsius.
Germany broke its all-time heat record on July 5, when the temperature reached 104.5 degrees Fahrenheit, or 40.3 degrees Celsius, in Kitzingen, according to Germany's National Meteorological Service. The U.K. set an all-time July heat record when the temperature at London's Heathrow Airport reached 98.1 degrees Fahrenheit, or 36.7 degrees Celsius, on July 1, according to the Met Office.
Maastricht in the Netherlands, set a new national July heat record in July, when the temperature reached 100.8 degrees Fahrenheit, or 38.2 degrees Celsius, according to the Weather Channel.
Published scientific research shows that manmade global warming is very likely playing an integral role in intensifying, and possibly also triggering, these extreme heat events.
A study published in April in the journal Nature Climate Change found that the probability of 1-in-1,000-day hot extremes over land is already about five times higher than it was in pre-industrial times, when global average surface temperatures were lower. To put it another way, the study found that about 75% of "those moderate hot extremes are attributable to warming."
The study, along with many others, found that the probability of hot extremes is likely to increase significantly as global warming continues.
World leaders will convene in Paris starting on November 30 to forge a new climate change agreement that would limit greenhouse gas emissions after the year 2020. So far, the amount of emissions cuts pledged by countries including the U.S., China, European Union and Brazil do not add up to enough to limit global warming below the agreed upon guardrail: 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels by 2100.
If Earth continues on its current emissions path, it is already headed for warming of up to 9 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century — which few climate scientists argue would be anything other than catastrophic. A drastic rise in sea levels, heat waves, species extinctions and shifts in extreme weather events would result.
In other words, this July record could be viewed as a warning of what may be in store depending on decisions made very soon.
Additional reporting from Andrew Freedman and The Associated Press.