LAT:

"The NOAA report underscored the effect that oceans have on temperatures. Oceans store much of the planet's heat, but ocean heat storage is at near-record levels, the report said, and increases were detected even in the ocean's depths.

But as oceans trap heat from a warming planet, they change. Surface ocean temperatures in 2012 were among the 11 warmest on record. In a study recently published in the journal Nature and Climate Change, Australian researchers reported that warmer seas have led to profound changes in marine life, including more species moving to the relatively cooler water of the poles.

Sea levels reached a record high in 2012, climbing 1.3 inches per decade since satellite tracking of sea levels began in 1993, NOAA said.

The Arctic also underwent "unprecedented change" and the warming trends there broke several records, the report said. For instance, the sea ice over the Arctic "shrank to its smallest 'summer minimum' extent since satellite records began 34 years ago."

Because the ice caps act as the planet's "air conditioners," scientists say, less Arctic ice means less ability to reduce heat."

Even average measurements indicating "normal" trends sometimes masked extreme swings in regional weather, according to the NOAA. For example, global average rainfall was "unremarkable," but much of the nation experienced extreme drought last year, yet the Sahel region of Africa had record rains and flooding during its wet season. Now this year, approximately 87% of the U.S. Western states are in drought.

"The latest 'State of the Climate' report shows that the Earth continues to heat, the atmosphere is heating, the worldwide ice loss continues, and other symptoms of our warming planet march forward, without cessation," said John P. Abraham, professor of thermal sciences at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. "A lot of people claim that global warming has magically stopped, but the facts, and the Earth, continue to disagree."