This May is recorded as the second hottest May in history, only behind May 2024, according to the latest data from the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
The average global surface temperature this month will be 1.4 degrees Celsius higher than in the pre-industrial period of 185 - 1900, when humans began burning fossil fuels on an industrial scale.
This temperature increase also marks the second hottest spring (March to May) on record in the Northern Hemisphere. This is part of a long unusual weather pattern, with the last 21 to 22 months having an average global temperature exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
While this heat wave may be temporarily interrupted, scientists warn that this will not last long. C3S Director Carlo Buontempo said: While this could provide temporary relief for the planet, we expect the 1.5C threshold to soon be surpassed as the climate system continues to heat up.
The main cause of climate change is greenhouse gases emitted from burning fossil fuels. Last year was the hottest year on Earth.
A separate study published by the climate scientists World Weather Attribution also showed that human-caused climate change caused record heat in Iceland and Greenland last month to be about 3 degrees Celsius warmer than if there were no intervention from climate change. This contributed greatly to the melting of ice in Greenland.
Sarah Kew, a research fellow and researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Meteorology, emphasized: Even countries with cold climates are seeing unprecedented temperatures.
Global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is a goal committed by countries in the Paris Climate Agreement to avoid the worst consequences of global warming. However, some scientists believe that this target is now difficult to achieve and call on governments to take stronger action in cutting CO2 emissions to limit threshold crosses and accompanying extreme weather phenomena.
The C3S data system began recording in 1940 and has been compared to global temperature records since 1850.
