The world experienced the warmest April ever, with record heat, rain, and flooding crippling normal life in many countries, according to new data released on Wednesday.
Summer 2024 in several parts of the country are already reeling under heat wave, with Maharashtra, northern Karnataka, Saurashtra, Kutch and parts of Rajasthan reporting heat wave conditions in late March this year.
In 2023, India experienced its second warmest years in 122 years as this was the year of El Nino which is associated with higher than normal temperatures.
It was also the eleventh consecutive month of record-high temperatures, a result of the combined effect of now weakening El Nino and human-caused climate change, the European Union’s climate agency Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said that heatwave conditions will continue in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, while the mercury will touch 42 degrees in Delhi.
Amid the intense heat, the national capital recently recorded its hottest day of the year, with a maximum temperature of 41.1 degrees Celsius, which was two notches above normal.
The average temperature of 15.03 degrees Celsius in April was 1.58 degrees Celsius higher than the month's average for 1850-1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period.
It was 0.67 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average for April and 0.14 degrees Celsius above the previous high set in April 2016.
“El Nino peaked at the beginning of the year, and the sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific are now going back towards neutral conditions. However, while temperature variations associated with natural cycles like El Nino come and go, the extra energy trapped in the ocean and the atmosphere by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases will keep pushing the global temperature towards new records,” Carlo Buontempo, Director of C3S, said.
The global average temperature for the past 12 months (May 2023-April 2024) is the highest recorded, at 0.73 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average and 1.61 degrees Celsius above 1850-1900 pre-industrial average, the climate agency said.
According to C3S, the global average temperature breached the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold for an entire year for the first time in January.
According to climate scientists, countries need to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
Earth's global surface temperature has already increased by around 1.15 degrees Celsius compared to the average in 1850-1900 due to the rapidly increasing concentration of greenhouse gases — primarily carbon dioxide and methane — in the atmosphere.
Globally, 2023 was the warmest year in the 174-year observational record, with the global average temperature at 1.45 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial baseline (1850-1900).
The warming may set a new record in 2024 as scientists say El Nino — periodic warming of the ocean surface in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean — typically has the greatest impact on global climate in the second year of its development.
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