Earth's latent heat streak has extended for 11 months, and another global temperature record was broken in April.
It was the warmest April on record, with an average surface temperature of 59.05 degrees, officials from the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service announced this week. It was about 0.25 degrees warmer than the previous high in April 2016.
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April was 2.84 degrees warmer than the estimated average for the month from 1850 to 1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period against which current warming is measured.
International climate officials have pledged to limit planetary warming to 2.7 degrees (1.5 degrees Celsius) to prevent the worst effects of climate change, including worsening drought and wildfires, rising sea levels and extreme heat.
Part of the recent increase in heat can be attributed to El Niño, a weather pattern in the tropical Pacific that influences temperature and weather conditions around the world, experts said. But El Niño has been waning and global warming driven by fossil fuel emissions remains the main driver of high temperatures.
“El Niño peaked earlier in the year and sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific are now returning to neutral conditions,” Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said in a statement. “However, as temperature variations associated with natural cycles like El Niño come and go, the extra energy trapped in the ocean and atmosphere by rising greenhouse gas concentrations will continue to push global temperatures toward new records.”
Although 11 consecutive months of record temperatures are unusual, it is not the first time the planet has seen such a streak. According to Copernicus, a similar streak occurred in 2015-16. However, the global average temperature for the last 12 months (May 2023 to April) is the highest on record.
“Maybe I'm a little surprised by the magnitude, but I'm not at all surprised that this was by far the warmest year on record,” said Emily Becker, lead author of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's El Niño-Sur report. Swing Blog. “With the combination of global warming and El Niño, I think this is what we can expect.”
California experienced a relatively cool April compared to other parts of the world. According to Copernicus, the worst of the month's heat affected northern and northeastern North America, eastern Europe, Greenland, eastern Asia, the northwestern Middle East, parts of South America and most of Africa.
Southeast Asia, in particular, has been hit by an extreme heat wave that began in April and has continued for weeks, contributing to dozens of deaths. Bangladesh, Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines are among the hardest hit countries, with triple-digit temperatures causing schools to close and contributing to devastating crop failures.
Authorities in Chauk, Myanmar, reported a high temperature of 118.8 degrees in April.
Oceans were also warm around the world last month, with sea surface temperatures averaging 69.9 degrees, the highest value on record in April and just a few tenths of a degree colder than March readings.
It is the 13th consecutive month of record sea surface temperatures, Copernicus said.
Antarctic sea ice extent was 9% below average (the 10th lowest extent on record in April), while Arctic sea ice extent was about 2% below average, a relatively small anomaly. compared to the readings of the month in the last 10 years.
Some officials are hopeful that the retreat of El Niño could ease the heat wave. There is an 85% chance that El Niño's colder counterpart, La Niña, will develop in the fall or early winter, according to NOAA's most recent outlook.
Becker said the models predict “a small decrease in global mean temperature” over the next nine months, but not a substantial drop. The fact that the most recent months of record temperatures have occurred despite the waning strength of El Niño indicates that, even without its influence, global warming and other factors continue to keep temperatures high.
“Given that the global mean temperature was much higher than would have been expected with the impact of El Niño alone, we expect to see the global mean temperature remain well above average,” said Becker, an associate scientist at the University of Miami.
While La Niña may cause a slight reduction in heat, it carries other risks, including the potential for an active Atlantic hurricane season and a return to dry conditions in California. La Niña was last present between 2020 and 2023, a period that included the three driest years on record in California.
What's more, forecasts indicate that another hot summer could be ahead for the United States and other parts of the world. That includes increased chances of above-normal temperatures across all parts of the continental U.S. in July, August and September, according to NOAA's latest seasonal outlook.
The regions of the United States most likely to experience high temperatures are along a diagonal stretch from Idaho to Texas, as well as in the far northeast. The outlook for California shows a 33%-40% chance of above-normal temperatures along the coast and a 40%-50% chance of above-normal temperatures in inland areas and northernmost counties. .
With four hot months already on record, it is “very likely” that 2024 could challenge 2023's title as the warmest year on record on Earth, Becker said.
Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, said in a publish in X that there is a 66% chance that the heat of 2024 will exceed that of last year. There is a 99% chance it will be one of the two warmest years, at least so far.
