Average global temperatures recorded in early June were the highest ever recorded by Europe’s Copernicus service for the period, surpassing previous records by a multiple, a likely foretaste of the phenomenon. El Nino.

“The world just had the warmest start to June on record, after the month of May was just 0.1C cooler than the record,” Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the European Copernicus service, said in a statement on Thursday to climate change (C3S).

Copernicus does not give the value of these average global temperatures, but indicates that they exceeded pre-industrial levels by more than 1.5°C.

The Paris Agreement, struck at the end of COP21 in December 2015, was aimed precisely at keeping average global temperature increases “well below 2°C” this century and continuing efforts to bring them closer to 1.5°C to limit.

However, between June 7 and June 11, the world’s average daily temperature has already reached at least 1.5°C higher than in the pre-industrial era, and even 1.69°C higher on June 9, a Copernicus spokesman told AFP .

This is the first time that the 1.5°C mark will be exceeded in this June period, although it has already been exceeded several times in winter and spring in recent years.

“Mean global surface air temperatures during the first few days of June were the highest recorded in the ERA5 dataset. [données climatiques mondiales enregistrées depuis 1979] for the beginning of June and with a considerable distance”, specifies Copernicus, which is based on data, some of which go back to 1950.

“It’s not surprising because there is a trend towards rising temperatures,” commented François-Marie Bréon, deputy director of the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences (LSCE), when questioned by AFP. “If an event El Nino “As a plant develops, the temperature tends to increase by a few tenths of a degree,” he explains.

These new heat records actually come during the phenomenon El Ninogenerally associated with a rise in global temperatures, has officially begun, recalls Copernicus, who also recently announced that the sea surface had just experienced the warmest May on record.

“Heavy trend”

“If a year is particularly hot, that doesn’t necessarily matter, but of course what it does is this strong trend, showing a temperature increase of about two-tenths of a degree per decade,” emphasizes Francois-Marie Breon.

“Every fraction of a degree counts to prevent even worse consequences of the climate crisis,” emphasizes Samantha Burgess.

Copernicus is based in Bonn, right where international climate negotiations are currently taking place under the auspices of the United Nations ahead of the big COP28 in Dubai at the end of the year. The issue of mankind’s use of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas), the main causes of global warming, is hotly debated on this occasion.

” Years El Nino It’s always been warm, but now they’re occurring against a backdrop of decades of fossil fuel-induced warming that has made extreme temperatures more likely,” warns Richard Hodgkins, professor of physical geography at Britain’s University of Loughborough.

Heat waves “act like wildfires, the melting of the poles, or an increase in the demand for electricity for air conditioning” that “just add to the warming,” he concludes, while drought ravages Europe and freak fires ravage Canada right now.

Another issue that worries experts: a phenomenon of “extraordinarily high” temperatures in the North Atlantic, says François-Marie Bréon.

To see in the video