March Was World's Fifth Warmest Month

Once again, too much red in the world.  March was Earth's
fifth warmest on record. 

 At least the world's (overheated) climate has been consistent for many months now. Too bad the consistency isn't a good sign.  

Globally March was the fifth warmest month on record. This follows the trend of the past several months to a year, in which pretty much every month has ranked somewhere between fourth and sixth place in the hot month derby. 

According to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information:

"The seven warmest Marches have occurred since 2015, while the 10 warmest Marches have occurred since 2002 March, 2022 also marked the 46th consecutive March and 447th consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th century average." 

Overall, the first three months of 2022 were also the world's fifth hottest on record. 

 I guess we can at least partially blame La Nina for this strange consistency. La Nina is a periodic cooling of eastern Pacific Ocean water, especially off the west coast of South America. During a La Nina, the earth's temperature tends to cool a bit. 

This La Nina has lasted an unusually long time. Most La Ninas last from nine to twelve months. This one has gone on for two years and is expected to last at least a few more months. 

I wonder what will happen when we eventually flip over to the opposite phenomenon the El Nino. Unlike El Nina, the Nino tends to warm the global atmosphere somewhat, with or without human-induced climate change. 

That could mean more record heat for the planet, which means more weather extremes. Perhaps more deadly and more costly weather disasters than we're already experiencing. 

So far this year, insurers who track particularly expensive weather disasters with losses of $1 billion or more ave noted two such calamities this year through March.  That's about on pace with the rate of such disasters in recent years, anyway. 

The two mega-disasters in early 2022 were a huge flood in eastern Australia that caused about $4 billion in damage, and Storm Eunice, which caused about $4.1 in damage across western and central Europe, mostly due to high winds.