April 2024 Was Hottest on Record, Says EU Climate Monitor

(SPOT.ph) Did April feel even hotter than usual? Don’t worry, we weren’t just imagining it. April 2024 is the hottest April so far based on the records of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the European Union’s (EU) monitoring service. This may no longer be shocking to us Filipinos who live in the tropics, but the service notes that this is just the latest in an 11-month streak of unprecedented high temperatures on a global scale.

Hottest April on record: April 2024

CS3’s data shows that last April was 1.58°C warmer than an estimate for the same month in the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period, or when human activities began to influence the global climate.

This continues the worrying record-breaking trend, wherein each month since June 2023 has ranked as the planet’s hottest on record.

This graph shows monthly global surface air temperature anomalies. You can clearly spot the yellow line of 2024 well above the rest. PHOTO C3S/ECMWF

While temps soared across the globe, the records were most above average over in Eastern Europe, northern and northeastern North America, Greenland, northwest Middle East, parts of South America, most of Africa, and yes, eastern Asia.

While there are temperature variations associated with natural cycles like El Niño, researchers from the climate monitoring service believe that human-induced climate change will likely keep temps high. “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,” said Carlo Buontempo, Director of the C3S.

The whole of April saw most of the Philippines recording high temps, with forecasts of even higher Heat Index numbers, and even ruins of a 300-year-old town reemerged amid dwindling water levels in a reservoir.

The C3S is under the European Commission, as funded by the EU. They publish climate change bulletins monthly, taking note of changes in global temperatures.