According to NOAA and NASA, 2016 was the hottest year ever recorded. This record that has been broken each of the last three years. To some this is not a surprise.
“It’s not terribly surprising,” LSU professor, Dr. Jill Trepanier said. “Since we’re seeing a lot of warming trends going on the likelihood that it would continue in that direction makes logical sense.” 
Both climate change and global warming are reasons for rising temperatures according to Trepanier. However, she believes that there are common misconceptions in the public.
“Climate change is this natural, cyclical phenomenon where we get warmer and we get colder on planet Earth for a variety of reasons,” Trepanier said. Global warming in her own words is “the change we see in our climate is due to the activities that humans do.”
Trepanier says that these rising temperatures should be a cause for concern when it comes to food and water supply in the future. Even with that in mind, she doesn’t see 2017 surpassing last year’s record temperatures.
“What I think you’re going to see is bigger changes in how many hurricanes we have coming in the next couple of years,” Trepanier said. “But I think the temperature itself, I’d be surprised if it beat it by a lot, it might break the record again but just barely.”