NASA has just released their figures for global temperatures in 2017, as we recently reported, and it is more bad news as it was the second warmest year on record. And while you may be thinking that at least that is not a record, the staggering reality is that the record was in 2016, and if you adjusted for the La Nina weather phenomenon, 2017 would have set a record.

The report from NASA found that Earth is way above the mean temperature between 1951 and 1990, specifically by a total of 1.62 degrees. Researchers at the Goddard Institue for Space Studies determined that global temperatures were the second warmest since estimates started being record in 1880.

La Nina has been in effect throughout the year, and the weather phenomenon cools the Earth, which is what makes it so alarming that the globe reported such a high mean temperature anyway. It’s a sign that the planet’s long-term warming trend is continuing unabated.

“Phenomena such as El Niño or La Niña, which warm or cool the upper tropical Pacific Ocean and cause corresponding variations in global wind and weather patterns, contribute to short-term variations in global average temperature,” the NASA statement reads. “A warming El Niño event was in effect for most of 2015 and the first third of 2016. 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.”