Earth Hits New Milestone: 2015 Marks Warmest January to March On

The first three months of 2015 have been the warmest January-March on record for the globe, according to three separate analyses released this week.

NOAA's state of the climate report released Friday says January-March 2015 topped the previous record warm first quarter of any year set in 2002.

January - March 2015 global temperature anomalies in degrees Celsius, compared to the 1981-2010 averages.
(NOAA/NCDC)

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies also found January-March to be record warm for the globe, with a surface temperature anomaly of 7.9 degrees Celsius, relative to the 1951-1980 average, topping the previous record from 2002 of 7.7 degrees Celsius. Both NOAA and NASA's global temperature records date to 1880. 

March 2015 was the warmest March globally, as well, according to NOAA. Eight of the past 12 months -- March, December, October, September, August, June, May and April -- have either tied or set new global warm records for their respective months.

NOAA said only two other months -- February 1998 and January 2007 -- had higher global temperature anomalies for their respective months than March 2015.

An analysis from the Japan Meteorological Agency found March 2015 to be the warmest in their dataset dating to 1891. Four of the five warmest Marches in JMA records have occurred this century, including 2010 (second warmest), 2002 (third warmest) and 2014 (fifth warmest). 

March monthly global temperature anomalies (departures from 1981-2010 average) from 1891-2015. March 2015 highlighted by red box. Long-term March trend shown by red line. 

The first three months of 2015 were much warmer than average over a vast extent of Europe and Asia, particularly from Scandinavia and eastern Europe across much of Russia, as well as a swath of western Canada and the western United States, including Alaska. 

Seven western U.S. states set their record warmest January-March periods, according to NOAA.

(MORE: Nine U.S. States With Extreme Jan-Mar Temps)

One of the few consistently cold spots has been eastern Canada and the northeastern quarter of the United States. New York and Vermont shivered through their coldest January-March on record in 2015. 

One contributor to this is a persistently warm body of water in the northern Pacific Ocean known by scientists as "the blob," which is now pushed closer to the West Coast of the U.S. and Alaska, including the Aleutians.

Sea-surface temperature anomalies in degrees Celsius on April 15, 2015. Note the large area of warm sea-surface temperatures in the eastern and equatorial Pacific Ocean.
(NOAA/ESRL)

Also, with the potential for El Nino to strengthen in the months ahead, it is possible 2015 will go down as the globe's warmest year on record.

(MORE: Effect on Atlantic Hurricane Season 2015? | El Nino Facts & Myths)

Without El Nino's warmer ocean water, 2014 still set a record warm year for the globe.

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