NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information has recently announced that January 2020 was Earth’s warmest January since record keeping began in 1880. This record is especially interesting as it occurred during a time without an El Niño event being present. Additionally, we are also experiencing a deep solar minimum (where sunspots and solar activity are very low), which usually results in a bit of cooling for the Earth, making this record all the more impressive.
For more information about these findings, see NOAA’s January 2020 global climate report. Another great article to check out is the January 2020 Eye of the Storm blog by Dr. Jeff Masters (co-founder of Weather Underground) over at Scientific American, where he provides an overview of the January climate records and notable weather-related events.