he world's land areas were 1.89 degrees Celsius warmer than a normal January, says the most recent data from the U.S. National Climatic Data Center.

The average land temperature broke the old record set in 2002 by four-tenths of a degree. That's a significant jump, considering that weather records are usually broken by hundredths of a degree at a time.

Scientists blame the hot January on global warming and a fading El Nino current, which is a warming of the central Pacific Ocean.

The most unusually warm conditions were in the mid- and high-latitude land areas of the Northern Hemisphere, specifically Canada, Siberia, northern Asia, and Europe.

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