2010 closing in on hot records, NOAA data show

WASHINGTON — After eight months, 2010 is running neck and neck with 1998 for the record as the hottest year.

The planet's average temperature for January-August was 58.5 degrees, tying the record heat set for that period in 1998, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said Wednesday.

While 1998 was the hottest year through the first eight months, 2005 is the hottest full year on record.

NOAA's National Climatic Data Center also reported:

• It was the third-hottest August on record with an average temperature for the month of 61.2 degrees. The hottest August was 1998, followed by 2009.

• The meteorological summer — June to August — averaged 61.3 degrees, making it the second-hottest summer on record worldwide behind 1998.

Meanwhile, a separate report from the National Snow and Ice Data Center said Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year and is the third-lowest extent recorded since satellites began measuring minimum sea ice extent in 1979.

Arctic sea ice covered an average of 2.3 million square miles during August. This is 22 percent below the 1979-2000 average extent and the 14th consecutive August with below-average Arctic sea ice extent, NOAA reported.

Melting sea ice is part of a pattern of changes atmospheric scientists attribute to global warming, which has been documented in rising temperatures over the past several decades.

The new climate report noted that August was hotter than normal in Eastern Europe, eastern Canada and parts of eastern Asia but cooler than average in Australia, central Russia and southern South America.

It was the hottest August since 1961 in China, but the coolest August since 1993 in the United Kingdom.