June started warmer than ever, with the temperature hovering above 1.5° | Science and the planet

In the first 11 days of the month, the Earth was also on average more than 1.5 degrees warmer than it was before the industrial age, according to the Copernicus report. This has never happened before in June. Since 2015, the 1.5° limit has been exceeded several times in other months.

The Copernicus Climate Service (C3S), as the name of the entire EU service, constantly monitors temperature and climate. This is done, among other things, with satellite measurements. The organization sees the daily measurements as “a good indicator of how quickly we are approaching the 1.5-degree threshold set out in the Paris Agreement”. At the end of 2015, countries specified in this agreement that they would do everything possible to keep global warming well below 2 degrees and preferably below 1.5 degrees. Those limits were not chosen arbitrarily. According to climate scientists, every tenth of a degree more could exacerbate the effects of climate change exponentially.

The fact that a threshold has been temporarily exceeded does not mean that the UN climate goal has been broken. C3S asserts: “It’s about an average of more than twenty or thirty years, not for short periods like days or months.” Filmmaker Samantha Burgess stresses that monitoring our climate is “more important than ever” for her. “Every bit of a degree is important to avoid more serious consequences of the climate crisis,” she adds in a statement.

Due to the emission of greenhouse gases, the Earth’s temperature is steadily increasing. Furthermore, El Niño temporarily exists, which is a complex weather phenomenon that causes a rise in ocean temperatures for about six months. Around the equator, the water can now be up to three degrees warmer than usual for this time of year. In Europe, the consequences of El Niño are small.

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