Global average surface temperatures could be on track to chalk up a new record in 2014 if the trend set in the first five months of this year continues.

Data released today by US agency NASA shows that May's global temperature anomaly – the variance with the long term average - was 0.76oC. This compares with the previous warmest Mays in 2010 (0.70oC) and in 1998 (0.68oC) - an El Nino year.

This follows the release of satellite measurements of the average temperature of the global troposphere for May by the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) which showed that May 2014 was the third warmest May in the satellite record which dates back to 1978.