Surprise: The world just had its warmest winter on record

Although this might come as a shock to residents of the Northeast who are still digging themselves out from record amounts of snow, new data shows the winter of 2014-15 — defined as the period from December to February — was the warmest on record for Earth.

In addition, the year-to-date so far is the warmest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

See also: Summer heat waves may have roots in rapid Arctic warming

Both these data points, plus information from NASA and other researchers, demonstrates that the record-warm year of 2014 was no fluke. In fact, 2015 has a decent shot at exceeding the 2014 record, for a back-to-back string of record-warm years. Read more...

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