The US' NASA and the Japan Meteorological Agency have both said that May 2014 is officially the warmest May in recorded history.

While preliminary, this finding is expected to be bolstered by data from China, which was hit by a massive drought in May. An upcoming study by the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration is also expected to reach the same conclusion as NASA and JMA.

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Europe, Central Asia, Japan, Australia, Russia, Southern Africa, Brazil, Eastern Canada and the Western North were warmer than normal this May, said scientists.

To arrive at its conclusions, NASA used a baseline set from 1951to1980 to determine how much a month's temperature deviated from normal. Its preliminary numbers show the combined global land and ocean temperature in May deviated from that baseline by three-quarters of a degree Celsius, the most of any May since accurate records began in 1880.

The 0.76 degree Celsius anomaly is tied for the sixth-largest anomaly for any month since 1880. NASA said all 10 of the largest monthly temperature anomalies on record have occurred since 1995.

Gavin Schmidt, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said the fact that NASA and the Japan used different calculation methods to arrive at similar results is significant. Goddard maintains NASA's global temperature database.

Scientists said this exceptionally warm May was fueled by an upcoming El Nino in the tropical Pacific and shifting weather patterns worldwide. The extra heat being generated by El Nino is warming the oceans and supercharging the Earth's temperature.

El Nino's effects should peak between October and December and should continue into early 2015.

Scientists said these factors could help make 2014 the warmest year in recorded history--and probably for much longer.

They said that on our current path of minimal attention, global warming could exceed 4.5 degrees Celsius by 2100, which would have devastating effects.

Equally ominous is that monthly concentrations of carbon dioxide reached 400 parts per million for the first time in at least 800,000 years this April.

Tags2014, hottest, month, May