May 2017 was the second-warmest May in 137 years of modern record-keeping of average global temperatures, according to NASA. The two top May temperature anomalies have occurred during the past two years. As compared to the May mean temperature, 2016 was the hottest on record as it was 0.93 degrees Celsius warmer.
According to the NASA report, May 2017 temperature was 0.05 degrees Celsius cooler than last year. It was just 0.01 degrees Celsius warmer than the third warmest May, which occurred in 2014.
The monthly analysis by scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) 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.
The modern global temperature record begins around 1880 because previous observations didn’t cover enough of the planet.
(With inputs from PTI.)
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