A truck sprays water on a road in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to lower the temperature during a heatwave in April
MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP via Getty Images
Global temperatures last month were the highest ever recorded for the month of April, making this the 11th month in a row to set a record, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
The average global surface air temperature during April 2024 was 15.03°C (59.05°F), which is 0.14°C above the previous record for April set in 2016.
This means average global temperatures were 1.6°C higher during April 2024 than the average for April between 1850 and 1900, regarded by climate scientists as the pre-industrial benchmark.
The global average for the past 12 months is also the highest on record, at 1.6°C above the 1850 to 1900 average.
As part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries pledged to try to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Climate scientists won’t regard the 1.5°C limit as being breached until the long-term average exceeds it, but this could happen by 2030.
There is no doubt that the long-term increase in global temperatures is being driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.
The El Niño phenomenon, during which warm waters spread across the Pacific and release heat into the atmosphere, has also contributed to the recent run of record-breaking months. There was a strong El Niño in 2016, when the previous April record was set.
It is likely that a La Niña phase will develop in the second half of the year, meaning cold water spreads across the Atlantic, cooling the surface air. That should result in a temporary dip in global surface temperatures.
“El Niño peaked at the beginning of the year,” Carlo Buontempo at the Copernicus Climate Change Service said in a statement. “However, whilst temperature variations associated with natural cycles like El Niño come and go, the extra energy trapped in the ocean and the atmosphere by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases will keep pushing the global temperature towards new records.”
In fact, global surface temperatures during the past year have been even higher than expected after taking into account human-caused warming and El Niño, leading to concern that global warming might be accelerating.
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