Global temperatures in February exceeded previous monthly records by an unprecedented amount, according to Nasa data. The rises are great enough to set off alarms that suggest a climate emergency.
The result was "a true shocker, and yet another reminder of the incessant long-term rise in global temperature resulting from human-produced greenhouse gases", according to Jeff Masters and Bob Henson writing in a blog on the Weather Underground, a commercial weather forecasting service that provides local & long range weather reports and analysis. Their assessment confirmed an earlier analysis that indicated the likelihood of record-breaking temperatures.
The global surface temperatures across land and ocean in February were 1.35°C warmer than the average temperature for the month, as calculated from the baseline period of 1951-1980. The previous global record was set only one month earlier, with January already beating the baseline average for that month by 1.15°C.
A possible mitigating factor is that these temperatures may have been exaggerated by the very large El Niño in the Pacific Ocean. El Niño Is part of a regular climate pattern, the warm phase of a recurring warm belt across the tropical Pacific. But against that supposition is that this February’s rise in temperature smashed records set during the last large El Niño from 1998, which was at least as strong as the current one.
