Climate, February 2024 hottest on record: warning from Copernicus

The Climate Change Observatory said that for the ninth consecutive month, an all-time high in temperature was reached. February 2024 thus becomes the hottest February in history since measurements have been taken.

I data from the Copernicus service on EU climate change,are clear. Global sea surface temperatures are also at the highest levels ever recorded.

I According to the data February was 1.77°C warmer than pre-industrial levels from 1850 to 1900 and 0.81°C above levels from 1991 to 2020. The average global temperature over the past 12 months, between March 2023 and February 2024, was the highest ever recorded, at 1.56°C above pre-industrial levels. Average daily global temperatures were “exceptionally high” during the first half of the month, reaching 2°C above 1850-1900 levels for four consecutive days (Feb. 8-11), Copernicus said.

In this way, the Earth has temporarily placed itself Above the 1.5°C threshold. A limit beyond which, in the long term, the worst impacts of climate change are expected.

In February 2024, temperatures in Europe were 3.30°C above the average that had been recorded in the period between 1991 and 2020. Far above average temperatures in Central and Eastern Europe.

Arctic ice

Arctic sea ice has shrunk by 2 percent always with respect to the media. Its extent always in February 2024, is well below the values recorded before the turn of the last century. Antarctic sea ice reached its annual monthly minimum, the third lowest in the satellite data record, at 28 percent below average, not far from the all-time low in February 2023 (-33 percent).