According to the European Union’s climate change monitoring service, the world just had its warmest March on record, ending a 10-month streak in which every month set a new temperature record.
According to a monthly bulletin from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), every one of the past ten months has been the hottest on record globally when compared to the corresponding month in prior years.
According to C3S, the year that ended in March was also the hottest year on record for the planet. The average global temperature between April 2023 and March 2024 was 1.58 degrees Celsius higher than that of the pre-industrial era between 1850 and 1900.
“It’s the long-term trend with exceptional records that has us very concerned,” C3S Deputy Director Samantha Burgess told Reuters.
“Seeing records like this – month in, month out – really shows us that our climate is changing, is changing rapidly,” she added.
C3S’ dataset goes back to 1940, which the scientists cross-checked with other data to confirm that last month was the hottest March since the pre-industrial period.
Already, 2023 was the planet’s hottest year in global records going back to 1850.
This year has witnessed extreme weather and exceptional temperatures.
Climate change-driven drought in the Amazon rainforest region unleashed a record number of wildfires in Venezuela from January-March, while drought in Southern Africa has wiped out crops and left millions of people facing hunger.
Marine scientists also warned last month a mass coral bleaching event is likely unfolding in the Southern Hemisphere, driven by warming waters, and could be the worst in the planet’s history.
The primary cause of the exceptional heat were human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, C3S said. Other factors pushing up temperatures include El Nino, the weather pattern that warms the surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
El Nino reached its maximum in December and January and is currently waning, which could contribute to a break in the hot streak by year’s end.
However, even though El Nino lessened in March, marine air temperatures remained abnormally high and the average global sea surface temperature reached a record high for any month on record, according to C3S.
“Fossil fuel emissions are the primary cause of global warming,” stated Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at the Grantham Institute of Imperial College London.
According to Otto, if these emissions are not reduced, the planet will continue to warm, causing more frequent and severe heat waves, fires, droughts, and heavy rainfall.
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