A new monthly global heatwave record was set on Earth in March, with air and ocean temperatures reaching a record high for the month, according to the European Union’s climate agency Copernicus (C3S).
C3S experts said the 12 months ending in March were also the hottest 12 months in the planet’s history. From April 2023 to March 2024, the average global temperature was 1.58 degrees Celsius higher than in the pre-industrial period 1850-1900. C3S Deputy Director Samantha Burgess told Reuters:
“It’s the long-term trend with exceptional records that has us very concerned. Seeing records like this – month in, month out – really shows us that our climate is changing, is changing rapidly.”
The C3S dataset starts from 1940, and scientists cross-checked it with other data to confirm that last month was the hottest March since pre-industrial times. Already 2023 has become the hottest year on the planet in recorded history since 1850.
This year’s extreme weather and exceptional temperatures have wreaked havoc. Climate change-induced drought in the Amazon rainforest led to a record number of forest fires in Venezuela in January-March, while drought in southern Africa destroyed crops and left millions facing starvation.
Scientists say the record-breaking heat during this time wasn’t entirely surprising due to a strong El Niño, a climatic condition that warms the central Pacific and changes global weather patterns. Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Francis said:
“But its combination with the non-natural marine heat waves made these records so breathtaking.”
El Niño peaked in December and January and is now weakening, which could help break the hot streak towards the end of the year.
But despite the weakening El Niño in March, global average sea surface temperatures reached an all-time record high for the month and sea air temperatures remained unusually high, C3S reported. Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute, said:
“The main driver of the warming is fossil fuel emissions.”
Unless these emissions are reduced, Otto said, the warming of the planet will continue, leading to more intense droughts, fires, heat waves and heavy rains.
The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that the world will probably breach 1.5C in the early 2030s. The target is measured in decades rather than individual years.
