Record global temperatures in March 

Global temperatures hovered at historic highs last month, and Europe experienced its warmest March, suggesting international climate goals could be moving out of reach.

The average temperature in March in Europe climbed to above 6 degrees Celsius (42.8 Fahrenheit), which is 0.26C (0.468F) above the previous hottest March in 2014. 

The average global temperature last month was 1.6C (2.88F) higher than in pre-industrial times, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Tuesday.

The findings, contained in C3S’s monthly report, underscore growing concerns that the international goal of limiting global warming by the year 2100 to 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels is slipping out of reach.

Scientists have warned 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.

Samantha Burgess, strategic lead at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which runs the C3S service, noted that Europe experienced extremes in both heavy rain and drought in March.

Europe last month recorded “many areas experiencing their driest March on record and others their wettest March on record for at least the past 47 years”, Burgess said.

Scientists said climate change also intensified an extreme heatwave across Central Asia and fuelled conditions for extreme rainfall in countries like Argentina.

Arctic sea ice also fell to its lowest monthly extent last month for any March in the 47-year record of satellite data, C3S said. The previous three months also set record lows.

The EU monitor uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to aid its climate calculations. Its records go back to 1940.

Source: Agencies