Berlin, Jun 6 (EFE).- May was the 12th consecutive warmest month worldwide since records began, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the Earth observation component of the European Union’s Space programme, reported Wednesday.
May this year was the hottest on record globally with an average surface air temperature of 15.91ºC, 0.65ºC above the 1991-2020 average for May and 0.19ºC above the previous record established in May 2020, according to the monthly bulletin published by the Bonn-based institution.
Although unusual, a similar streak of monthly global temperature records previously occurred in 2015/2016.
The month was 1.52 ºC warmer than an estimate of average temperature for April during the 1850-1900 period.
The global average temperature of the last 12 months – from June 2023 to May 2024 – is the highest since records began, being 0.75 ºC above the 1991-2020 average and 1.63 ºC above from the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.
The average temperature in Europe in May was 0.88ºC higher than the 1991-2020 May average, making last month the third warmest May on record on the continent.
Much of the Iberian Peninsula, southwestern Turkey and a large region of eastern Europe, including southern Fennoscandia and the Baltics, were drier than usual.
Below average temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific indicate the development of La Niña, but air temperatures over the ocean remained unusually high in many regions.
The global sea surface temperature averaged for May was 20.93°C, the highest value recorded for the month.
May was the 14th consecutive month in which the global sea surface temperature was the warmest on record.
“The climate continues to alarm us – the last 12 months have broken records like never before – caused primarily by our greenhouse gas emissions and an added boost from the El Niño event in the tropical Pacific,” Samantha Burgess, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said.
“Until we reach net-zero global emissions the climate will continue to warm, will continue to break records, and will continue to produce even more extreme weather events,” she warned.
Arctic sea ice extent was only slightly below average, as in May 2022 and 2023.
Antarctic sea ice extent was 8 percent below average, the 6th lowest extent for May in the satellite data record, notably smaller in magnitude than the record of -17 percent observed in May 2023. EFE
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