NASA says, last month was the second-warmest May in 137 years of modern record keeping of average global temperatures. The monthly analysis by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) said, last month was 0.88 degrees Celsius warmer than the mean May temperature from 1951-1980.
NASA said this year’s May temperature was 0.05 degrees Celsius cooler than last year. It said that 2016 was the hottest on record, at 0.93 degrees Celsius warmer than the May mean temperature. The two top May temperature anomalies have occurred during the past two years, said NASA.
The monthly analysis is assembled from publicly available data acquired by about 6,300 meteorological stations around the world, ship- and buoy-based instruments measuring sea surface temperature, and Antarctic research stations.