Last Month Was the Hottest September Ever Recorded

After experiencing the hottest month ever recorded in August after what was the hottest July ever recorded, the Earth has now seen the hottest September on the books, another sign that the effects of climate change are beginning to compound.

The Washington Post obtained data collected from scientists in Japan and Europe confirming that Earth's average temperature last month shattered the previous record by 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Post notes this is the single largest monthly margin ever observed by scientists.

Worldwide, temperatures were closer last month to what used to be considered normal temperatures for July, according to the data.

September's average temperature was 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit higher than temperatures were from 1991 to 2020, according to the report.

"The first global temperature data is in for the full month of September," wrote Zeke Hausfather, the climate lead for the tech giant Stripe.

"This month was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist — absolutely gobsmackingly bananas," Hausfather continued. "JRA-55 beat the prior monthly record by over 0.5C, and was around 1.8C warmer than pre-industrial levels."

According to Hausfather, who is also a scientist at Berkeley Earth, there are no signs temperature readings are set to level off.

"The bad news is that we don't see any sign of global temperatures reverting to what is normal for this time of year," he wrote. "They remain close to the highest anomalies we saw in the month of September as we go into October."