Global heat streak extends through April
BRUSSELS—The world just experienced its hottest April on record, extending an 11-month streak in which every month set a temperature record, the European Union’s climate change monitoring service said on Wednesday.
Each month since June 2023 has ranked as the planet’s hottest on record, compared with the corresponding month in previous years, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in a monthly bulletin.
Including April, the world’s average temperature was the highest on record for a 12-month period—1.61 degrees Celsius above the average in the 1850-1900 preindustrial period.
Some of the extremes—including months of record-breaking sea surface temperatures—have led scientists to investigate whether human activity has now triggered a tipping point in the climate system.
“I think many scientists have asked the question whether there could be a shift in the climate system,” said Julien Nicolas, C3S senior climate scientist.
‘Lost the battle?’
Greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels are the main cause of climate change. In recent months, the natural El Niño phenomenon, which warms the surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean, has also raised temperatures.
Scientists have already confirmed that climate change caused some specific weather extremes in April, including a heat wave in the Sahel linked to potentially thousands of deaths.
Hayley Fowler, a climate scientist at Newcastle University, said the data showed the world is perilously close to breaching the 2015 Paris Agreement’s goal to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius.
