'Earth on track to warmest year on record'

The global average temperatures for October as well as the January-to-October period were both the highest on record since record keeping began in 1880.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for October 2014 was the highest on record for the month.
It also marked the 38th consecutive October with a global temperature above the 20th century average. The last below-average global temperature for October occurred in 1976. NOAA found.
The January-October combined global land and ocean average surface temperature was the warmest such period on record, surpassing the previous record set in 1998 and 2010.

The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for October 2014 was the highest on record for the month at 14.74 degrees Celsius or 0.74 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average of 14.0 degrees Celsius, beating the previous record of 2003 by 0.01 degrees Celsius.
Five of the past six months have been record warm for their respective months; July was fourth warmest, NOAA said.

The October global land temperature was the fifth highest on record for October at 1.05 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average of 9.3 degrees Celsius.
Warmer-than-average temperatures were evident over most of the global land surface, except for large parts of central Asia.

NOAA said record warmth was notable across a large area of southern South America, the US western coastal regions, Far East Russia, parts of southern and southeastern Asia, much of southern and western Australia, and parts of southern Europe.
The October global sea surface temperature was 0.62 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average of 15.9 degrees Celsius, the highest on record for October and the sixth consecutive month with a record high monthly global sea surface temperature.
This also ties with June 2014 for the third highest ocean temperature departure on average for any month; the second highest occurred in August 2014 and the highest occurred just last month.

Record warmth was observed in parts of every major ocean basin. Nearly all of the Indian Ocean was record warm or much warmer than average, said NOAA.
There is close to a 60 per cent chance for El Nino to officially develop across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean during the Northern Hemisphere winter, according to NOAA's Climate Prediction Centre.