Brussels: The world has just experienced its hottest April on record, extending an unprecedented 11-month streak during which each month has set a new temperature record, according to the European Union’s climate change monitoring service on Wednesday.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) reported in its monthly bulletin that every month since June 2023 has ranked as the planet’s hottest on record compared to the corresponding month in previous years.
With April’s inclusion, the world’s average temperature has soared to the highest on record for a 12-month period, surpassing levels seen in the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period by a staggering 1.61 degrees Celsius.
The severity of these extremes, including months of record-breaking sea surface temperatures, has prompted scientists to explore whether human activity has 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,” remarked Julien Nicolas, Senior Climate Scientist at C3S.
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While greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels remain the primary driver of climate change, the recent occurrence of the natural El Niño phenomenon, which warms surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean, has further elevated global temperatures.
April’s data has already confirmed climate change-induced weather extremes, such as a deadly heatwave in the Sahel region, potentially leading to thousands of fatalities.
Hayley Fowler, a climate scientist at Newcastle University, cautioned that the world is dangerously close to breaching the 2015 Paris Agreement’s target to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
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“At what point do we declare we’ve lost the battle to keep temperatures below 1.5? My personal opinion is we’ve already lost that battle, and we really need to think very seriously about keeping below 2C and reducing our emissions as fast as we can,” she emphasized.
The 1.5C goal, agreed upon at the 2015 U.N. climate summit, is deemed crucial to avoid catastrophic consequences such as deadly heatwaves, widespread flooding, and irreversible ecosystem loss.
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Although technically the 1.5C target has not yet been missed, as it refers to an average global temperature over decades, some scientists argue that achieving it is becoming increasingly unlikely. They urge governments to accelerate CO2 emissions reductions to prevent overshooting the target.
The C3S dataset, dating back to 1940, has been cross-checked with other data to confirm that last month was indeed the hottest April since the pre-industrial period.
