April Temperatures Breach 1.5C Threshold For 9th Consecutive Month

Global temperatures stood at 14.96C in April, the second-hottest April ever recorded and the ninth consecutive month to breach the Paris Agreement’s threshold, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Thursday.

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Global temperatures remained abnormally high last month, the second-hottest April globally.

The global average temperature stood at 14.96C, 1.60C above the 1991-2020 average for April, according to data by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). 

Last month was also 1.51C above the estimated pre-industrial average, the 21st month in the last 22 months and the ninth consecutive month to breach the critical temperature threshold set in the Paris climate agreement. Beyond 1.5C of global warming, experts warn that critical tipping points will be breached, leading to devastating and potentially irreversible consequences for several vital Earth systems that sustain a hospitable planet.

While this does not signal a permanent breach of the critical limit, which scientists say is measured over decades, it sends a clear warning to humanity that we are approaching the point of no return much faster than expected.

The past 12 months have been 0.70C above the 1991-2020 average, and 1.58C above the pre-industrial level, the EU-funded Earth observation programme added.

The average sea surface temperature was the second-highest value ever recorded for the month, just 0.15C below last year’s record.

Climate Change

Between March and April, multiple areas in the southeastern South Korea were simoultaneously affected by severe blazes that spread extremely rapidly owing to very strong winds. The wildfires, the nation’s largest and deadliest, were fueled by exceptionally hot, dry and windy condition.

A group of scientists studying the potential relationship between climate change and extreme weather events said it was “undeniable” that rising temperatures contributed to the fires.

In an attribution analysis published last week by World Weather Attribution (WWA), they concluded that the fire-favorable weather was made twice as likely and about 15% more intense due to warming caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.

2024 was South Korea’s hottest year since since 1973, when record keeping began, with an average temperature of 14.5C.

In March, a heatwave with temperatures up to 15C higher than the seasonal average affected several regions across Central Asia. Once again, a WWA rapid attribution analysis concluded that human-made climate change made the heatwave twice as likely and about 15% more intense.

Once-rare warm spells like this can be expected about once every three years because of human-induced global warming, which has made the Earth 1.3C hotter compared to pre-industrial levels, the group said. 

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the most authoritative scientific body on the subject, human-induced greenhouse gas emissions have led to an increase in both the frequency and intensity of some weather and climate extremes since pre-industrial times, including heatwaves, floods, and droughts.

Featured image: CAL FIRE_Official/Flickr.