July 2013 an above average month for warmth worldwide: NOAA

Iqaluit residents woke up to find a few millimetres of snow covering their streets this past July 3. (FILE PHOTO)

No matter how you look at it, July was warm, according to the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — even if in Iqaluit and some other communities on Baffin Island it snowed during that month.

The combined average temperature over the world’s land and ocean surfaces for July 2013 came in at the sixth highest on record, at 0.61 C above the 20th century average of 15.8 C, NOAA said Aug. 20.

The world’s land surface temperature was 0.78 C above the 20th century average of 14.3 C, marking the eighth warmest July on record.

For the ocean, the July global sea surface temperature was 0.54 C above the 20th century average of 16.4 C, with July 2013 the fifth warmest July on record.

The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the January to July 2013 period was 0.59 C above the 20th century average of 13.8 C, tying with 2003 as the sixth warmest such period on record.

Around the world, only land surfaces across much of the U.K. and parts the central and southeastern U.S. were cooler than average for the January to July period.

As for the oceans, the average January to July temperature was 0.45 C above average, the eighth warmest such period on record.

NOAA also said it was much warmer than average across the equatorial waters of the Atlantic, Indian, and western Pacific Oceans, along with waters surrounding most of Australia and the far northeastern Atlantic extending into the Arctic seas.