The record-setting January was spurred on by unusually warm Siberia, Canada, northern Asia and Europe, said scientists, who went beyond their normal double-checking and took the unusual step of running computer climate models “just to make sure that what we’re seeing was real.”

“From one standpoint it is not unusual to have a new record because we’ve become accustomed to having records broken,” said Jay Lawrimore, climate monitoring branch chief. But January, he said, was a bigger jump than the world has seen in about 10 years.

The temperature of the world’s land and water combined – the most effective measurement – was 1.53 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal, breaking the old record by more than one-quarter of a degree. Ocean temperatures alone didn’t set a record.

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