The world has never been as warm in March as this year. As the EU Earth observation service Copernicus reports, the Earth’s surface temperature was 14.14 degrees last month. At the end of the 19th century, before the start of industrialization and man-made climate change, a typical March would have been 1.68 degrees cooler.
The new high continues a trend that has now lasted ten months: Copernicus has reported a new temperature record for every month since June 2023.
The many successive records are caused not only by the continuing rise in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, but also by the weather phenomenon El Niño, as a result of which the Pacific in particular at the level of the equator on the west coast of America is heating up significantly. The current El Niño is already leveling off again, but the ocean is still warmer than ever. Copernicus reports a new ocean surface temperature record of 21.07 degrees for March, just above the high of 21.06 degrees set in February.
This also brings a historic brand within reach. Between 2015 and 2016, the previous global temperature records were broken for 15 consecutive months. Almost all of these high temperatures have now been exceeded, only the April record dates back to 2016.
The temperature over the past twelve months is now 1.58 degrees above pre-industrial levels and thus well above the limit of 1.5 degrees set out in the Paris Agreement. For the first time ever, this value was exceeded in mid-January. In order to limit global warming, net emissions of greenhouse gases would have to be reduced significantly and quickly towards zero.
The global temperatures determined by Copernicus are calculated from measurements from weather stations, satellites, ships and aircraft. In this way, average temperatures can be determined from around the middle of the 19th century. However, current temperatures are likely to be far higher than those of previous centuries.