Last month was the warmest February on record, the European Union’s climate service said Wednesday, marking the ninth consecutive month of unprecedented heat as the climate crisis continues to drive up global temperatures.
Climate scientists say the climate crisis, without a doubt, is to blame for increased temperatures.
Not only was it warm above sea level—global ocean temperatures also reached a record high last month. That’s not just for February but for any month on record.
“Ocean warming has prompted concerns about the mass bleaching of coral reefs. It also raises global sea levels and can help to fuel higher intensity hurricanes,” the BBC reports. “Unusually warm waters may also have been a factor in another exceptional month for Antarctic sea ice. The three lowest minimum extents in the satellite era have now occurred in the last three years.”
Arctic sea ice is also disappearing, and the Arctic could be virtually ice-free during the summer within a decade.
“February joins the long streak of records of the last few months,” said Carlo Buentempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. “As remarkable as this might appear, it is not really surprising as the continuous warming of the climate system inevitably leads to new temperature extremes.”
“The climate responds to the actual concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere so, unless we manage to stabilize those, we will inevitably face new global temperature records and their consequences,” Buentempo added.
The last year has been over 1.5°C above pre-industrial averages—1.56°C, to be exact—but that won’t signify a breach of the goals set in the Paris Agreement unless temperatures remain elevated for the next few years.
“A year ago, the fact that the global temperature for a particular month would reach 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level would have been considered exceptional,” Julien Nicolas, a senior scientist at Copernicus, told The New York Times.
The world will have to get off of fossil fuels in order to halt runaway warming, and this year could help determine the future of the climate, considering one of the people running to lead the nation appears destined to unleash billions of tons of additional planet-warming emissions should he return to office.
