May Was the World’s Second-Hottest on Record, EU Scientists Say
Average global temperature was 1.42C above pre-industrial levels, with climate change and a developing El Nino pattern driving the warmth, C3S said.
- On Wednesday, the Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that May was the second-hottest on record globally, trailing only May 2024, with average temperatures 1.42 degrees Celsius above 19th-century pre-industrial levels.
- Driven by climate change and a developing El Nino weather pattern, the month saw significant temperature spikes; this natural phenomenon occurs every two to seven years, warming waters in the eastern Pacific and fueling extreme weather worldwide.
- Temperatures reached 35 to 40 degrees Celsius across Britain, France, Ireland, and Portugal during an unusually early 'heat dome,' which Samantha Burgess of the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts said 'demonstrates how quickly climate extremes are becoming the new normal.'
- Fatal floods struck China and Turkey last month, illustrating broader climate impacts; these extreme weather events align with C3S expectations of how climate change affects the world's fastest-warming continent.
- The World Meteorological Organization reported last week an 80 per cent chance of El Nino developing between June and August, with forecasts warning this could be one of the strongest on record, potentially pushing 2027 global temperatures to historic highs.
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Last May was the second warmest since there are records, reported Wednesday the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), climate monitoring component of the European Union (EU) space program in its monthly bulletin. Copernicus’ report indicated that last May the average global temperature in the air surface was 15.81oC, a value higher than 0.55oC than the average calculated for the period 1990-2020 and greater than 1.42oC at the average attribut…
May 2026 was the world's second-hottest on record, EU scientists say
BRUSSELS - The world has just experienced the second-hottest May since records began, as climate change and the developing El Niño weather pattern conspired to push up average land and sea temperatures, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Wednesday.
Only 2024 has surpassed it, and now El Niño is coming, which could further intensify extreme weather.
May 2026 was the second warmest month ever recorded globally, both on land and at sea, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), managed by the European Centre for Long-Range Weather Forecasts...
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