Temperatures continue to rise
The month of February this year has been the warmest since there are records, according to the European Copernicus climate observation program this Thursday. In this way, the upward trend is maintained and it becomes the ninth consecutive month (since June 2023) with temperatures breaking parameters, as it was also this January 2024.
According to Copernicus, the Earth’s average temperature was 13.5 degrees Celsius in February, a figure that is 0.81 points above the average recorded for the same month between 1991 and 2020 and 0.12 degrees above the warmest February on record in 2016.
Comparison with the pre-industrial era
If compared to the average temperature of what the Copernicus report notes as the pre-industrial era, between 1850 and 1900, it shows that February 2024 was 1.77 degrees Celsius warmer. Overall, the average for the last twelve months (March 2023 – February 2024) was the highest ever recorded, about 1.56 degrees above 1850-1900 levels. This puts the average global temperature above the red line of 1.5 degrees of warming, a threshold beyond which the worst long-term consequences of climate change are expected.
Temperatures worldwide
Temperatures this February, averaged around the world, have been “exceptionally high” in the first half of the month, warns Copernicus, which places them around 2 degrees above 1850-1900 levels between the 8th and 11th. If we look at Europe in more detail, temperatures this February were 3.3 degrees above the average between 1991 and 2020, with a particular incidence of the temperature rise in central and eastern Europe. Overall, the entire last winter period, from December to February, was the second warmest on record.
Heated sea and localized droughts
Sea surface temperatures have also reached a record this February. They have stood at 21.06 degrees Celsius, surpassing the previous record high of 20.98 degrees Celsius in August 2023. For days, the sea surface temperature reached 21.09 degrees Celsius at the end of the month In terms of precipitation, Copernicus data indicate that this February has been wetter than average in Europe, but they note that “persistently drier than average conditions have been recorded in eastern and southern Spain “, which refers to the severe drought that Catalonia has been suffering for almost three years. “Drier than average conditions” were also seen in most Mediterranean countries, parts of the Balkans, Turkey and regions of Iceland and northern Scandinavia, as well as western Russia.
‘Not surprising’: the climate change trend
The director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, Carlo Buontempo, has described these new record temperature figures as “not at all surprising”, as, he notes, “the continued warming of the climate system inevitably leads to new temperature extremes”. “The climate responds to the real concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, so unless we manage to stabilize them, we will inevitably face new global temperature records and their consequences,” warned the expert .
Are you committed to the sustainability of our planet?
We too. That’s why we invite you to our GreeN community where you can calculate your carbon footprint and reduce it by planting trees.