Sharjah24 – AFP: Last month was the hottest November on record as Europe basked in its highest Autumn temperatures in history, the European Union's satellite monitoring service said Monday.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) analysis of surface and air temperatures found that November 2020 was 0.8C warmer than the 30-year average of 1981-2010 -- more than 0.1C hotter than the previous record.
For boreal autumn (September-November) temperatures in Europe were 1.9C above the standard reference period, 0.4C higher than the average temperature in 2006, which was the previous warmest.
The landmark deal, which turns five this month, enjoins nations to limit temperature rises to "well-below" 2C (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
Last week the World Meteorological Organization said 2020 was on course to be among the three hottest years ever recorded.
C3S said that with just one month left to go, 2020 is on par to match 2016, the current record holder.
With just over 1C of warming so far, Earth is already dealing with the devastation caused by more frequent and stronger extreme weather events such as wildfires and tropical storms.
Satellite images analysed by C3S also showed that Arctic sea ice extent was the second lowest for November in the database, which began in 1979.
The largest negative sea ice concentration anomalies were in the Kara Sea, while there was below average cover in the eastern Canadian archipelago and Baffin Bay.
Temperatures were substantially higher than normal across the Arctic and much of Siberia last month, and higher than average across the United States, South America, southern Africa, eastern Antarctica and most of Australia, C3S said.
The five hottest years in history have all come since 2015.
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