Every month since April 2023 has broken its own temperature records — and March of this year only supported this disappointing statistic, reports is the European Union’s climate change monitoring service.
The average surface air temperature was 14.14°C in March, 0.1°C higher than the previous maximum set in March 2016 and 1.68°C higher than in the pre-industrial period.
Overall, from April 2023 to March 2024, the global average temperature was 1.58°C higher than the pre-industrial period of 1850-1900. The Paris Climate Agreement aims to limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average.
«Looking at records like this — month after month — it’s clear that our climate is changing, and it’s changing fast», — says Samantha Burgess, deputy head of monitoring at C3S.
The 12-month period ending in March was also the hottest 12-month period on record — as well as the whole of 2023 (again, based only on the years in which observations were made).
Extreme weather and high temperatures have had negative consequences — particularly in South Africa, where drought has destroyed crops and left millions of people hungry. In Venezuela, a record number of forest fires were recorded in January-March.
The EU’s Climate Change Monitoring Service notes that the main cause of the extreme heat was greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity — and they have only been exacerbated by the El Niño phenomenon, which heats up surface waters in the eastern Pacific.