February marks 9th straight month of record-smashing heat
Last month was the warmest February on record globally, the ninth straight month of historic high temperatures across the planet as climate change steers the world into “uncharted territory”, Europe’s climate monitor said on Thursday.
The last year has seen an onslaught of storms, cropwithering drought and devastating fires, as humancaused climate change — intensified by the naturallyoccurring El Nino weather phenomenon — stoked warming to likely the hottest levels in over 100,000 years.
Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) service last month said the period from February 2023 to January 2024 marked the first time Earth had endured 12 consecutive months of temperatures 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than the preindustrial era.
That trend has continued, it confirmed in its latest monthly update, with February as a whole 1.77C warmer than the monthly estimate for 1850-1900, the pre-industrial reference period.
Temperatures spiked across swathes of the planet in February, from Siberia to South America, with Europe also registering its second warmest winter on record.
In the first half of the month, daily global temperatures were “exceptionally high”, Copernicus said, with four consecutive days registering averages 2C higher than preindustrial times — just months after the world registered its first single day above that limit.
This was the longest streak over 2C on record, said C3S director Carlo Buontempo, adding the heat was “remarkable”.
But it does not mark a breach of the 2015 Paris climate deal limit of “well below” 2C and preferably 1.5C, which is measured over decades.
Copernicus’ direct data from across the planet goes back to the 1940s, but Buontempo said that taking into account what scientists know about historical temperatures “our civilisation has never had to cope with this climate”.
“In that sense, I think the definition of uncharted territory is appropriate,” he said, adding global warming posed an unprecedented challenge to “our cities, our culture, our transport system, our energy system”.