Paris, April 6 (AFP\/APP): Earth had its joint second-warmest March on record with Antarctic sea ice shrinking to its second-lowest extent for that month, the EU’s climate monitoring agency said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“The month was jointly the second-warmest March globally,” tied with 2017, 2019 and 2020, the Copernicus Climate Change Service said. The hottest March on record was in 2016.<\/p>\n
Its report is based on computer-generated analyses using billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world.<\/p>\n
It said temperatures were above average over southern and central Europe and below average over most of northern Europe.<\/p>\n
They were far warmer than average over much of North Africa, southwestern Russia, Asia, northeastern North America, South America including drought-stricken Argentina, Australia and coastal Antarctica.<\/p>\n
Conversely, it was much colder than average over western and central North America, the agency said.<\/p>\n
Global warming is causing sea ice to decline and sea levels to rise, raising warnings that dangerous tipping points could be reached.<\/p>\n
Copernicus said Antarctic sea ice extent was the second lowest for March in the 45-year satellite data record, at 28 percent below average.<\/p>\n
It reached 3.2 million square kilometres on average, 1.2 million sq km below the 1991-2020 average for the month.<\/p>\n
It had reached the smallest area on record in February for the second year in a row, continuing a decade-long decline.<\/p>\n
In the north meanwhile, Arctic sea ice extent was four percent below average and joint fourth lowest for March on record, though concentrations were above average in the Greenland Sea.<\/p>\n
As temperatures rise globally because of human-caused climate change, Copernicus data show the past eight years were the eight warmest on record.<\/p>\n
A UN report warned in March that those record-breaking temperatures would figure among the coolest within three or four decades, even if planet-warming emissions drop quickly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paris, April 6 (AFP\/APP): Earth had its joint second-warmest March on record with Antarctic sea ice shrinking to its second-lowest extent for that month, the EU’s climate monitoring agency said on Thursday. “The month was jointly the second-warmest March globally,” tied with 2017, 2019 and […]<\/p>\n
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