Global temperatures in 2017 were some of the hottest on record,” according to studies done by both NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

“Earth’s global surface temperatures in 2017 ranked as the second warmest since 1880,” said a NASA news release. “That is second only to global temperatures in 2016.”

In addition to the findings made by NASA’s study that had determined 2017 records indicate that continuance of a global warming trend, the NOAA conducted a study that determined last year was the third hottest on record.

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“The minor difference in rankings is due to the different methods used by the two agencies to analyze global temperatures, although over the long-term the agencies’ records remain in strong agreement,” said the NASA report. “Both analyses show that the five warmest years on record all have taken place since 2010.”

Furthermore, the abnormally high El Niño wind activity — the very same phenomena that helped contribute to the spread of Southern California’s most recent wildfires — can cause short-term variations in the global average temperature.

However, even without an El Niño event – and with a La Niña starting in the later months of 2017 – last year’s temperatures ranked between 2015 and 2016 in NASA’s records.

“In an analysis where the effects of the recent El Niño and La Niña patterns were statistically removed from the record, 2017 would have been the warmest year on record,” said the NASA study.

Those fires also reached record size due to, as fire officials noted before last years fire season, record rainfall followed by extended heat waves. This resulted in the vegetation that flourished during the wet weather, to then dry out and provide an abnormal amount of fuel for the wildfires.

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“This year, Southern California has unusually high amounts of vegetation due to the very heavy winter storms,” said a Los Angeles County Fire Department news release last summer. “This vegetation is now drying and highly flammable – and even as people start to clear their brush to prevent summer fires, they are setting the brush ablaze with sparks from weed whackers.”

The fact that 2017 was the second- or third-warmest year on record, despite the presence of a cooling La Niña, speaks to the overall warming trend the Earth is experiencing thanks to overall global warming, according to a CNN article.

The six hottest years have all occurred since 2010 and 17 of the 18 hottest years on record have occurred since 2001, according to NASA.

CNN contributed to this article. KHTS is an affiliate of CNN.

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