Last month was the world's warmest February in modern times, the EU's climate service says, extending the run of monthly records to nine in a row.The world's sea surface is at its hottest on record, while Antarctic sea-ice has again reached extreme lows.
Carbon dioxide concentrations are at their highest level for at least two million years, according to the UN's climate body, and increased by near-record levels again over the past year. That threshold in the Paris agreement is generally accepted to mean a 20-year average - so it hasn't yet been broken - but the relentless string of records illustrates how close the world is getting to doing so.Recent records haven't just been limited to air temperatures. Countless climate metrics are far beyond levels seen in modern times.
"Ocean surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific clearly reflect El Niño. But sea surface temperatures in other parts of the globe have been persistently and unusually high for the past 10 months," explains Prof Saulo.Unusually warm waters may also have been a factor in another exceptional month for Antarctic sea-ice. The three lowest minimum extents in the satellite era have now occurred in the last three years.
There are signs that the run of global temperature records may finally come to an end in the months ahead. "We would expect to continue to keep 2024 temperatures elevated at least through the first half of the year," Dr Colin Morice, a senior scientist at the UK's Met Office Hadley Centre, told BBC News.
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