The average global temperatures recorded in early June were the hottest ever recorded for this period by the European service Copernicus, beating previous records by a “substantial margin”, it announced in a statement on Thursday.
“The world has just had its warmest start to June on record, after a month of May that was only 0.1°C cooler than the record,” Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the European service Copernicus, said in a press release. climate change (C3S).
“Mean global surface air temperatures for the first days of June were the highest recorded in the ERA5 dataset for an early June, and by a substantial margin,” says Copernicus, whose data some date back to 1950.
These readings come as the El Niño weather phenomenon, usually associated with an increase in global temperatures, has officially begun, recalls Copernicus. The latter also recently announced that the surface of the oceans had just experienced its warmest May on record.
Copernicus also points out that in early June, global temperatures exceeded pre-industrial levels by more than 1.5°C, which is the most ambitious warming limit of the 2015 Paris agreement. This is the first time that this limit was crossed in June but it has already been crossed several times in winter and spring in recent years.
“Every fraction of a degree counts to avoid even more serious consequences of the climate crisis”, underlined Samantha Burgess.
Copernicus is based in Bonn, the very place where international climate negotiations are currently being held under the aegis of the UN, before the big COP28 scheduled for Dubai at the end of the year.
06/15/2023 11:53:32 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP