September 2018: Earth's 4th Warmest September on Record

September 2018 was tied with 2017 as the planet's fourth-warmest September since record keeping began in 1880, said NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) on Wednesday. The only warmer September months came in 2015, 2016, and 2014, according to NOAA. NASA rated September 2018 as tied for the sixth-warmest September on record. Minor differences in rankings between NASA and NOAA arise mostly due to how they handle data-sparse regions such as the Arctic, where few surface weather stations exist.

Global ocean temperatures during September 2018 were the fourth warmest on record, and land temperatures were the sixth warmest on record, according to NOAA. Satellite-measured temperatures for the lowest 8 km of the atmosphere were the 15th and 12th warmest in the 40-year record, respectively, according to the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) and RSS.

The year-to-date period of January – September now ranks as the fourth warmest on record, and it is increasingly likely that the five warmest years on record globally will be 2014 through 2018.

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Four billion-dollar weather-related disasters hit the Earth last month, according to the September 2018 Catastrophe Report from insurance broker Aon Benfield: Hurricane Florence in the U.S. ($10+ billion), drought in India ($1.1 billion), Typhoon Jebi in Asia ($2+ billion), and Typhoon Manghut in Asia ($2+ billion). In addition, damage claims from Typhoon Rumbia in China topped the $1 billion mark by the end of September, giving the planet 27 billion-dollar weather disasters so far in 2018. This already ranks as the sixth highest yearly total since 1990, according to Aon Benfield, with three months to go in the year.