This year’s November is officially the hottest month ever recorded, confirmed Europe’s Earth observation agency, Copernicus. In 2020, November’s temperature surpassed 2016 as the warmest on record, Bloomberg reports.
The year 2020 is full of surprises for the meteorologists. Last month, another global temperature milestone in a year that’s one step closer to fantastic. November temperatures were most above average in Northern Europe, Siberia, and the Arctic.
In 2020, November was close to 0.8° Celsius above the average temperature between 1981 to 2010, said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Moreover, the situation is not good because the temperature was 0.1°C above the previous warmest Novembers (2016 and 2019).
“These records are consistent with the long-term warming trend of the global climate,” Buontempo said and urged all policy-makers to prioritize mitigating climate risks. The hottest ever November is another alarm bells.
The World Meteorological Organization echoes Copernicus’ data because the global temperatures from January to October were already 1.2ºC above pre-industrial levels. No matter what happens over the rest of 2020, this decade will be the hottest on record, with the warmest six years all happening since 2015.
As an illustration of the frightening global warming, temperatures in the Arctic and northern part of Siberia remained consistently high, with sea ice at its second-lowest extent.
“This trend is concerning and highlights the importance of comprehensive monitoring of the Arctic, as it is warming faster than the rest of the world,” Buontempo added.
While Antarctic sea ice extent was close to average, with temperatures most below average in West Antarctica, Australia experienced its warmest spring on record, the WMO said.
