January 2007 was hottest ever

WASHINGTON – It may be cold comfort during a frigid February, but last month was by far the hottest January ever.

The broken record was fueled by a waning El Niño and a gradually warming world, according to U.S. scientists who reported the data Thursday. Records on temperature have been kept since 1880.

Spurred on by unusually warm Siberia, Canada, northern Asia and Europe, the world’s land areas were 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than a normal January, according to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center. That didn’t just nudge past the old record set in 2002, but broke that mark by 0.81 degrees, which is a lot, since such records often are broken by hundredths of a degree at a time.