Earlier this week, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service declared April 2024 to have had the highest global temperature for the month since records began. The average air temperature was 15.03C, 0.14C higher than the previous record in 2016 and 0.67C more than the 1991-2020 climate average.
Compared with the average April in the preindustrial period, considered to be 1850-1900, this April was 1.58C warmer. The global average temperature record has been broken each month since May 2023, making April the 11th month in a row to break the record. Meanwhile, this is the 13th consecutive month to have had the warmest sea surface temperatures for those respective months of the year.
While El Niño has generally been considered to have contributed to these warmer conditions over the past year or so, it has been weakening towards a more neutral state. Carlo Buontempo, the director of Copernicus, stated that the extra energy trapped in the atmosphere and ocean – caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases – will continue to push global temperatures towards new records.
Storms have been affecting south-eastern states of the US this week as an area of low pressure pushed in from the west through Tuesday and Wednesday bringing tornadoes to many states. These tornadoes, however, were not as severe as those at the end of last month. Despite the comparatively weaker tornadoes, the total destruction caused by this storm still left thousands of people without power and resulted in three deaths. The storms also brought flash flooding to large parts of Tennessee, shutting down many transportation routes. The number of storms is set to reduce through the weekend as high pressure starts to build in from the west.
Elsewhere, Zimbabwe continues to suffer from its worst drought in 40 years as crop yields drop by about 72%. This has worsened water shortages, with about 2.6 million people facing water insecurity. The drought was probably caused by a combination of factors including the increased average global temperatures and the current El Niño. There may be some relief over the next few months, however, as the weakening El Niño is forecast to transfer to a La Niña later in the summer.
