Don’t tell New York City and Boston, but the Earth experienced its warmest winter on record.
Just one day ahead of of spring 2015, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the Earth’s Northern Hemisphere (where the vast majority of the world’s population lives) experienced the record-breaking winter heat, while the Southern Hemisphere had it’s fourth-warmest summer.
The NOAA also stipulated that it has been the warmest year-to-date on record. It also defines winter as December 2014 to February 2015.
Here’s a few points, per NOAA:
- It was the second-warmest February on Earth since record keeping began in 1880
- December to February was the “warmest on record”
- The February “sea ice extent” was the third-smallest on record
- 2015 has seen the hottest start to any year, beating the previous records held in 2007 and 2002 by 0.07 degrees Fahrenheit
- It was the 19th-warmest February globally
And it’s no surprise that the only place where Earth experienced cooler-than-average temperatures was the eastern U.S. and eastern Canada.
“In February 2015, cooler to much-cooler-than average conditions overtook the entire eastern half of the United States and the eastern third of Canada, with some record cold pockets seen around the Great Lakes region and part of northeastern Canada near Hudson Bay,” the NOAA writes. “In stark contrast to the eastern United States, the western United States was encompassed by record warmth. The warm-cold pattern over the country has been observed over much of the past two years.”
