4th Warmest August

GISS puts August as the 4th warmest in their records, +0.61°C above their baseline:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts%2bdSST.txt

Year-to-date (i.e. Jan-August) this is the 8th warmest year in their records. (2010 had the warmest Jan-Aug.)

The other day NOAA said this summer was the 2nd warmest summer the US has ever seen. (The meteorological summer is defined as June-August.)

And also, that a new La Niña has started (which is bad news for the southwestern drought).

By the way, here is why you need to look at 30-yr trends (or so) to detect climate signals: El Niños and La Niñas can cause swings of several tenths of a degree. Since we're warming now at about 0.2°C/decade, an ENSO fluctuation of, say, 0.4 degrees would temporarily swamp, or exaggerate, about two decades of climactic warming.