The streak of record global temperatures has continued for the 11th month in a row, with April 2024 the hottest ever recorded, scientists have said.
Data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service C3S show April 2024 was globally warmer than any previous April in records dating back to 1940, and 1.58C warmer than the estimated average for pre-industrial levels.
April is the 11th month in a row that has been a record high for the time of the year.
And the global average temperature for the past 12 months, May 2023 to April 2024, is the highest on record – at 1.61C above the 1850-1900 period that is used as the benchmark for pre-industrial levels, before significant impacts of human activity began to influence the global climate.
In Europe, the continent warming fastest on Earth in the face of human-driven climate change, temperatures were 1.49C above the 1990-2020 average for April, making it the second hottest on record.
Average global sea surface temperatures outside the polar regions were 21.04C, the highest in records from 1979 for the month, and marginally below the record 21.07C seen in March.
It is the 13th month in a row that the sea surface temperature has been the warmest in the records for the respective month of the year.
The El Nino climate phenomenon in the Pacific, which also pushes up global temperatures, continued to weaken but marine air temperatures in general remained at an usually high level, scientists said.
Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S): “El Nino peaked at the beginning of the year and the sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific are now going back towards neutral conditions.
“However, whilst temperature variations associated with natural cycles like El Nino come and go, the extra energy trapped into the ocean and the atmosphere by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases will keep pushing the global temperature towards new records.”