May temperatures broke global records as the northern hemisphere finished its hottest spring on record, statistics released by Nasa showed. The Arctic in particular experienced abnormal heat, causing Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet to start melting unusually early. Alaska, USA recorded its warmest spring on record, and in Finland the average May temperature was between three and five degrees warmer than usual in most regions, according to data from the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
Now dissipated, El Nino factored into 2016’s recordsetting heat, but meteorologists say greenhouse gases emitted from human activities remain the underlying cause.
Recent predictions by US scientists anticipate that 2016 will go down as the hottest year on record – on the heels of record-setting years in 2014 and 2015. The fi rst four months were the warmest globally in 136 years.