The world has experienced temperatures again “remarkable” in April, marked by a new monthly heat record on land and on the surface of the oceans, according to the latest report from the European Copernicus observatory, published Wednesday May 8. Last month was the second warmest April ever recorded in Europe, as was March and the entire winter period.
The natural climatic phenomenon El Niño “continued to weaken”suggesting a possible respite later in the year, but without changing anything in the underlying trend of warming fueled by the massive combustion of oil, coal and fossil gas.
Since June last year, every month has broken its own monthly heat record. April 2024 is no exception, with an average temperature of 15.03 degrees, 1.58 degrees higher than a normal April in the climate of the pre-industrial era (1850-1900). “Although unusual, such a series of monthly records had already been observed in 2015-2016”specifies Copernicus.
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“Extreme climatic events”
Over the last twelve months, the global temperature has been on average 1.61 degrees higher than in the pre-industrial era, exceeding the limit of 1.5 degrees set by the 2015 Paris agreement. This anomaly should however be recorded on average over several decades to consider that the climate has reached this critical threshold.
These figures show “how remarkable are the global temperature conditions we are currently experiencing”underlines Julien Nicolas, climatologist at the Copernicus Climate Change Department (C3S).
“Each additional degree of global warming is accompanied by extreme weather events, which are both more intense and more likely”recalls Mr. Nicolas, while the last few weeks have been marked by extreme heat waves in Asia, from India to Vietnam, while the south of Brazil suffered deadly floods.
However, regarding precipitation, Copernicus does not show clear trends for April: the month was wetter than normal in a large part of Europe, but drier in the south of the continent. Same contrast outside Europe: in a large part of North America, in Central and East Asia, in the Gulf and southern Brazil, extreme rains caused flooding. But in northern Mexico, around the Caspian Sea and across large parts of Australia, drought dominated.
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El Niño “continued to weaken”
The ocean surface temperature once again reached an unprecedented monthly level in April, at 21.04 degrees on average excluding areas near the poles, marking a thirteenth monthly record in a row. This overheating threatens marine life, brings more moisture into the atmosphere and threatens the ability of the oceans to fulfill their crucial role in absorbing human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. However, the temperature marked a small inflection compared to March and its absolute record, all months combined (21.07 degrees).
The natural climatic phenomenon El Niño “continued to weaken” in April to go towards “neutral conditions”, estimates Copernicus. This natural variation concerns the equatorial zone of the Pacific Ocean and induces global warming. El Niño “reached its peak at the start of the year”notes Mr. Nicolas, which can explain a slight change in average temperatures in April compared to March.
“Model projections indicate a possible transition to La Niña conditions in the second half of the year, but conditions are still quite uncertain”, continues the climatologist. La Niña is the counterpart of El Niño, which produces opposite effects. But the end of El Niño will not change the underlying warming trend.
“This phenomenon is superimposed on long-term trends which persist and are directly linked to warming linked to the increase in concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and to the quantities of heat which are absorbed and stored in particular in the oceans »underlines Mr. Nicolas.
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These trends will continue “to push global temperatures to new records”, predicts Carlo Buontempo, director of C3S. At the end of March, the UN had already warned that there was a “high probability” that 2024 will in turn display unprecedented temperatures, while 2023 concludes a decade of unprecedented heat, pushing the planet “on the edge of the abyss”. For Mr. Nicolas, however, it is “still a little early” to predict whether new records will be broken, as 2023 has been exceptional.
