According to the EU's Copernicus climate and weather monitoring service, in February the average temperature exceeded the pre-industrial period by 1.77°C and reached a new historical record.
February also saw a historic record for ocean temperatures, as the average daily temperature reached 21.09°C, Bloomberg reports.
"The climate responds to the actual concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," said Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo. "If we fail to stabilize them, we will inevitably face new global temperature records and their consequences."
It is noted that February became the ninth month in a row in which the highest temperatures were recorded in the entire history of observations.
The article said that over the past 12 months, global temperatures were the highest on record, 1.56°C above the pre-industrial average. In addition, according to the International Energy Agency, in 2023 global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions increased by 1.1% and reached a new high.
Copernicus emphasized that the oceanic El Nino phenomenon, which contributes to an increase in ocean temperature, is weakening in the equatorial part of the Pacific Ocean. However, the temperature of the sea air as a whole remained at an extremely high level.
Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London, stressed that the planet is warming at an alarming rate.
"We know what to do — stop burning fossil fuels and replace them with more sustainable, renewable energy sources. Until we do, extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change will continue to destroy lives and livelihoods," she said.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that according to the EU climate and weather monitoring service Copernicus, in 2023, average temperatures were 1.52°C higher than in the pre-industrial period.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, a study of archival documents and articles in the United States showed that the oil and gas industry has been informed about the potentially dire consequences of fossil fuel combustion for the climate since 1954.
