April 2024 has set a new global heat record, with the average surface temperature reaching 15.03 degrees. This makes it the warmest April ever recorded worldwide, surpassing the previous record set in April 2016. This temperature increase is a result of a combination of human-induced global warming and natural weather phenomena, including the well-known El Niño, which has led to higher temperatures, especially in the Pacific Ocean. This explanation comes from Adrian Lema, the head of the National Center for Climate Research at the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI).
“It is a combination of both human-induced greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. And it is also due to some natural factors – including the phenomenon of ‘El Niño’ – that we are seeing now,” says Adrian Lema. According to the EU’s climate monitoring agency Copernicus, this is the eleventh consecutive month in which a heat record has been broken globally, and the global average temperature for the past twelve months has been the highest ever recorded.
Although the El Niño phenomenon is starting to weaken, and a more neutral and subsequently cooler weather phenomenon, known as La Niña, is expected to occur, Adrian Lema emphasizes that human-induced warming will continue to drive temperatures upwards. “But human-induced warming will keep pushing the temperature up, so it won’t be long before the degrees will once again break heat records,” he says.
In Europe, April 2024 was the second warmest April ever, with particularly high temperatures in Eastern Europe. Outside of Europe, temperatures were mostly above average in northern and northeastern North America, Greenland, eastern Asia, northwestern Middle East, parts of South America, and most of Africa. This continued trend of heat records underscores the importance of global action and adaptation to climate change, which continues to impact our planet in dramatic and unpredictable ways.