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Will I ever stop writing headlines about the hottest months on record?

Will I ever stop writing headlines about the hottest months on record?

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It seems like every month is the hottest month

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Blue Cut Fire Rages Through 30,000 Acres In Southern California
Photo by David McNew/Getty Images

And now, some regularly scheduled climate news: This year will almost certainly be the hottest year on record.

If this sounds familiar, it’s probably because the last hottest year on record was long-ago 2015, and we’re now continuing a trend. To be fair, the proclamation isn’t definitive yet because we don’t have all the data, but it is "very likely."

The World Meteorological Organization reports that temperatures from January until September this year were 1.58 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the average from 1961 to 1990. (WMO uses that period as its baseline.) In other news, Arctic sea ice levels remain low as greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide emissions increase in the absence of tighter climate change regulations.

So, it’s business as usual with this climate change news. In fact, this July was the hottest month recorded since tracking began 136 years ago — until August tied it for that sad record. Going backward, this June was also the hottest June on record, March was abnormally warm, and — you get the idea. Well, most people get the idea. Sadly, president-elect Trump is a climate change denier who has appointed another climate skeptic to head the Environmental Protection Agency transition, so unless we crack down with regulations like the Paris accords (and possibly even if we do), there’s no end in sight to these "hottest month" headlines.