World's 'exceptional' heat streak lengthens into March
In Europe, it was the hottest March ever recorded by a significant margin, said the Copernicus Climate Change Service, driving rainfall extremes across a continent warming faster than any other.
The world meanwhile saw the second-hottest March in the Copernicus dataset, sustaining a near-unbroken spell of record or near-record-breaking temperatures that has persisted since July 2023.
Since then, virtually every month has been at least 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than it was before the industrial revolution, when humans began burning massive amounts of coal, oil and gas.
March was 1.6C above pre-industrial times, extending an anomaly so unusual that scientists are still trying to fully explain it.
"That we're still at 1.6C above preindustrial is indeed remarkable," said Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London.
"We're very firmly in the grip of human-caused climate change," she told AFP.
Scientists had predicted the extreme run of global temperatures would subside after a warming El Nino event peaked in early 2024, but they have stubbornly lingered well into 2025.
"We are still experiencing extremely high temperatures worldwide. This is an exceptional situation," Robert Vautard, a leading scientist with the United Nations' climate expert panel IPCC, told AFP.
- 'Climate breakdown' -
Scientists warn that every fraction of a degree of global warming increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, heavy rainfall and droughts.
Climate change is not just about rising temperatures but the knock-on effect of all that extra heat being trapped in the atmosphere and seas by greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane.
Warmer seas mean higher evaporation and greater moisture in the atmosphere, causing heavier deluges and feeding energy into storms.
This also affects global rainfall patterns.
March in Europe was 0.26C above the previous hottest record for the month set in 2014, Copernicus said.
Some parts of the continent experienced the "driest March on record and others their wettest" for about half a century, said Samantha Burgess of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which runs the Copernicus climate monitor.
Bill McGuire, a climate scientist from University College London, said the contrasting extremes "shows clearly how a destabilised climate means more and bigger weather extremes".
"As climate breakdown progresses, more broken records are only to be expected," he told AFP.
Elsewhere in March, scientists said that climate change intensified a blistering heatwave across Central Asia and fuelled conditions for extreme rainfall which killed 16 people in Argentina.
- Puzzling heat -
The spectacular surge in global heat pushed 2023 and then 2024 to become the hottest years on record.
Last year was also the first full calendar year to exceed 1.5C -- the safer warming limit agreed by most nations under the Paris climate accord.
This single year breach does not represent a permanent crossing of the 1.5C threshold, which is measured over decades, but scientists have warned the goal is slipping out of reach.
According to Copernicus, global warming reached an estimated 1.36C above pre-industrial levels in October last year.
If the 30-year trend leading up to then continued, the world would hit 1.5C by June 2030.
Scientists are unanimous that burning fossil fuels has largely driven long-term global warming, and that natural climate variability can also influence temperatures from one year to the next.
But they are less certain about what else might have contributed to this record heat spike, or how this impacts our understanding about how climate might behave in future.
Vautard said there were "phenomena that remain to be explained" but the exceptional temperatures still fell within the upper range of scientific projections of climate change.
Experts think changes in global cloud patterns, airborne pollution and Earth's ability to store carbon in natural sinks like forests and oceans could be among factors contributing to the planet overheating.
Copernicus uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to aid its climate calculations.
Its records go back to 1940 but other sources of climate data -- such as ice cores, tree rings and coral skeletons -- allow scientists to expand their conclusions using evidence from much further in the past.
Scientists say the current period is likely to be the warmest the Earth has been for the last 125,000 years.
np-klm-bl/gil
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Patrick Star and 'Drag Queen' crab: underwater robot live stream captivates Argentines
A robot explores the dark, cold, deep sea floor of the South Atlantic, transmitting images of vibrant coral and fish never seen before as scientists give live commentary via YouTube. And Argentines can't get enough of it. The Argentine-American scientific mission is for the first time exploring the Mar del Plata canyon, a submarine gorge which plunges nearly 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) deep, off the coast of the seaside resort of the same name. The awed conversations between scientists leading the expedition and the explanations they give to viewers allow the public a rare insight into the hidden wonders of marine biology. In one instance, the camera on the SuBastian underwater robot shows a weird-looking, little white animal. One of the scientists on the team can be heard asking her colleagues, "Do we want it?" "Yes, yes, we want it!" reply dozens of messages in the live stream chat before the image shows the suction device being activated to suck up the specimen for study. "Oh, I love these little creatures," says one user. "I'm obsessed!" comments another. "Don't take the little one away!" pleads a third. The live stream began a week ago and exceeded one million views per day since Thursday, when it also began to be broadcast on television. "There are cold-water corals with the same colors as those in the Caribbean. How can that be? At a depth of 3,000 meters!" Pablo Penchaszadeh, a marine biologist and painter who is on board the expedition as an artist, told AFP. - Patrick Star - The 20-day expedition "Underwater Oases of the Mar del Plata Canyon" involves 25 scientists -- most of them from the Argentine research agency CONICET. Part of the GEMPA deep sea study group, with support from the US Schmidt Ocean Institute, it will end on August 10. Aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute's "Falkor (too)" ship, scientists remotely operate the robot, which can descend to a depth of 4,500 meters (14,700 feet). They collect biological samples with its robotic arms and other instruments, and send back high-definition images. "The fact that anyone can connect from home and see what we are seeing live is a unique opportunity," explains expedition leader Daniel Lauretta in a statement. "Science is no longer something distant or inaccessible, but becomes part of everyday life." This week, social media users were delighted when an orange starfish with two symmetrical bumps resembling buttocks appeared on the live stream. It quickly prompted comparisons with Patrick Star, from the popular animated series SpongeBob SquarePants. Memes circulated joking that "Patrick is Argentine," marine biology became a trending topic on social media, and the broadcast reached the screens of hundreds of thousands of captivated viewers. "I came to see the big-bottomed star, is it here?" asked one user upon entering the YouTube chat. Spectators also gave other sea creatures nicknames: a king crab was dubbed "Drag Queen," and sea cucumber was fondly called "Sweet Potato." - 'Beacon of light' - This is the first time that human eyes -- albeit remotely -- have seen this underwater oasis in real time, where the cold, nutrient-rich Malvinas current and warm, salty Brazil current converge. The confluence is "one of the most energetic regions in our global Ocean," according to the website of the Schmidt Institute, with the temperature difference creating an area teeming with marine wildlife and flora. "We are already seeing incredible things: animals that have never been recorded in this area, underwater landscapes that look like something from another planet, and behaviors that surprise even the most experienced scientists," said Lauretta. But funding for such expeditions is under threat in Argentina. CONICET, the government's scientific research arm, has been severely underfunded by libertarian President Javier Milei, who has implemented draconian cuts to public spending with his infamous "chainsaw." Its budget fell by 21 percent last year, salaries have plummeted by 35 percent since the Milei took office in December 2023, and the cuts have led to an exodus of scientists. As a result, in between "oohs" and "aahs" of wonder, messages of support are flooding the live stream's chat: "Long live Conicet!". "Seeing people being passionate about their job is attractive," said Tomas Atilio Luppi, a biologist at the CONICET-affiliated marine and coastal research institute in Mar del Plata, who is not directly involved in the campaign. "This is happening at a very difficult time," he told AFP of the popular broadcast. "Science is in a very complicated position, both financially and in terms of support and human resources." "The fact that this craze is happening is like a beacon of light." bur-lm/dg/db/aks/st Solve the daily Crossword
Epoch Times
2 days ago
- Epoch Times
China's $167 Billion Tibetan Dam Alarms Scientists, Neighbors
AD China's mega dam project in Tibet faces major safety and environmental concerns, as it is located in an earthquake-prone, biodiverse region. The Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon in Megok county, Nyingchi city, in western Tibet, China, on March 28, 2021. STR/AFP via Getty Images 7/25/2025 | Updated: 7/25/2025 China has officially begun construction on a massive hydroelectric dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet, despite strong warnings from scientists about the region's fragile ecosystem and complex geological conditions. Olivia Li is a contributor to The Epoch Times with a focus on China-related topics since 2012. Author's Selected Articles
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
The Bright Side: Leopard seal love songs structured like nursery rhymes, study finds
Male leopard seals compose and sing their own songs to woo potential mating partners, scientists in Australia have found. The songs are structured much like nursery rhymes, making them easy to remember. "It kind of sounds like sound effects from an '80s sci-fi" movie, the lead author of the study said. When male leopard seals dive down into icy Antarctic waters, they sing songs structured like nursery rhymes in performances that can last up to 13 hours, scientists said Thursday. The Australian-led team of researchers compared the complexity of the songs composed by the big blubbery mammals to those of other animals -- as well as human musicians like the Beatles and Mozart. Lucinda Chambers, a bioacoustics PhD student at Australia's University of New South Wales, told AFP that people are often surprised when they hear the "otherworldly" hoots and trills sung by leopard seals. "It kind of sounds like sound effects from an '80s sci-fi" movie, said the lead author of a new study in the journal Scientific Reports. During the spring breeding season, male leopard seals dive underwater and perform their songs for two minutes before returning to the surface for air. They then repeat this performance for up to 13 hours a day, according to the study. The researchers determined that all leopard seals share the same set of five "notes" which are impossible to distinguish between individuals. However each seal arranges these notes in a unique way to compose their own personal song. "We theorise that they're using that structure as a way to broadcast their individual identity, kind of like shouting their name out into the void," Chambers said. The researchers believe the males use these songs to woo potential female mates -- and ward off rivals. 'Songbirds of the ocean' The team studied recordings of 26 seals captured by study co-author Tracey Rogers off the coast of Eastern Antarctica throughout the 1990s. "They're like the songbirds of the Southern Ocean," Rogers, who is also from the University of New South Wales, said in a statement. "During the breeding season, if you drop a hydrophone into the water anywhere in the region, you'll hear them singing." The team analysed how random the seals' sequences of notes were, finding that their songs were less predictable than the calls of humpback whales or the whistles of dolphins. But they were still more predictable than the more complex music of the Beatles or Mozart. "They fall into the ballpark of human nursery rhymes," Chambers said. This made sense, because the songs need to be simple enough so that each seal can remember their composition to perform it every day, she explained. She compared it to how "nursery rhymes have to be predictable enough that a child can memorise them". But each seal song also needs to be unpredictable enough to stand out from those of the other males. Leopard seals, which are the apex predator in Antarctic waters, swim alone and cover vast distances. They likely evolved their particular kind of song so that their message travels long distances, the researchers theorised. Varying pitch or frequency might not travel as far in their environment, Chambers said. Female seals also sing sometimes, though the scientists do not know why. Chambers suggested it could be to teach their pups how to sing -- exactly how this talent is passed down is also a mystery. But she added that this behaviour has never been observed in the wild. The females could also just be communicating with each other, she said. (FRANCE 24 with AFP)
