New data from NASA shows that August 2014 was the warmest on record, but just barely.

Dr. Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climatologist and climate modeler at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, explained to the Huffington Post that this August was the hottest August since weather records began in 1886. But the difference between the average temperatures of this August compared to the previous record-holding August is just a few hundredths of a degree.

The NASA data also indicates that this summer as a whole tied for the fourth warmest summer ever.

But Schmidt points out that focusing on a single month or a single year doesn’t provide an accurate picture. "I think this is a measure of how one shouldn't spend so much time trying to derive larger-scale meaning from individual months," he comments. "There is quite a large amount of variability at the month-to-month scale, and small differences in data input, interpolation, (and) analysis can make a difference." The important takeaway from this data, he explains, is that "the long-term trends are toward warming."

Climatologists note that this data illustrates how rising greenhouse gas levels continue to warm the planet.