A new report from NASA has found that 2017 did not set a record for global temperatures, but it came close with the second warmest year on record since global estimates started being kept in 1880, coming in behind only 2016. It is a disturbing sign that despite pockets of record cold in the Eastern United States recently, temperatures around the globe on average continue to rise.

More specifically, the Earth’s global temperature was recorded at 1.62 degrees warmer than the temperature mean between the years of 1951 and 1990. This estimation is based on data collected by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which gathered the data from thousands of weather stations, ships, and buoys worldwide.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration did their own independent analysis and found that 2017 was the third warmest year on record.

“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.”