The European Union’s climate change monitoring arm reported that the world has experienced its warmest March on record, marking a continuous 10-month period where each month has set a new temperature record, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announced Tuesday.
This latest streak saw each of the past 10 months surpassing previous records for warmth compared with the same months in prior years, according to a monthly bulletin from C3S.
Furthermore, the 12-month period ending in March has been identified as the hottest 12-month stretch ever recorded on Earth, C3S revealed. From April 2023 to March 2024, the global average temperature was 1.58 degrees Celsius (2.84 degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial average spanning 1850-1900.
The year has been marked by extreme weather and unprecedented temperatures, including a record number of wildfires in Venezuela’s Amazon region from January to March, due to drought, and severe droughts in Southern Africa leading to crop failures and widespread hunger.
Marine scientists last month also signaled a probable massive coral bleaching event in the Southern Hemisphere, exacerbated by warming waters, potentially the worst ever recorded.
While El Niño reached its peak between December and January and is now weakening, which might reduce the heat levels later in the year, the average sea surface temperature in March still set a record high for any month, and marine air temperatures remained exceptionally high, according to C3S.
