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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
James Parrish and Morgan Thomas for MetDesk

Weather tracker: global average temperature highest ever for April

A woman drinks water from a bottle during hot weather under the shade of an umbrella held by another woman with people in the background
A woman drinks water during hot weather outside the Temple of the Emerald Buddha near the Grand Palace in Bangkok, Thailand, 29 April 2024. Photograph: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA

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.

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