- Hottest April since records began in 1940
- April was the 11th consecutive month where it was the warmest for the respective month of the year
- A similar streak of monthly temperature records was recorded in 2015/16
April had the highest global average surface air temperature than in any previous April, going back to 1940.
April 2024 is the eleventh consecutive month being the warmest for the respective month of the year. The month was 1.58°C warmer than an estimate of the April average for the pre-industrial reference period (1850-1900), according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) ERA5 reanalysis dataset.
Warmer than ever
The global surface air temperature for April was 15.03°C, 0.67°C above the 1991-2020 average for April and 0.14°C above the previous high set in April 2016.
While this streak of record-breaking temperatures is usual, it isn’t unprecedented – it also occurred in 2015/16. That streak went on for 15 months.
Globally, the last 12 months (May 2023-April 2024) were warmer than any previous 12-month period, at 0.73°C above the 1991-2020 average and 1.61°C above the pre-industrial average.
El Niño influence
Despite the weakening of El Niño towards neutral conditions in the eastern equatorial Pacific, the global average sea surface temperature (SST) outside the polar regions was once again the warmest for the respective month of the year, continuing a series of 13 monthly records in a row.
C3S data shows that even though the recent El Niño event has played an important role in the recent record global SST observed during the past months, other regions of the global ocean have also been much warmer than average with areas of the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean and the extra-tropical Pacific Ocean seeing record high SSTs values for April. April was the warmest on record, continuing the trend of rising global temperatures. February has also set a record for being the warmest on record.
“El Niño peaked at the beginning of the year, and the sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical pacific are now going back towards neutral conditions,” said Carlo Buontempo, Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. “However, whilst temperature variations associated with natural cycles like El Niño come and go, the extra energy trapped into the ocean and the atmosphere by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases will keep pushing the global temperature towards new records.”
Meanwhile, Korean scientists have broken the world temperature record with their artificial sun.
