World Sees 10th Consecutive Hottest Month on Record as March Temperatures Soar to Unseen Levels VIABILITY OF LIFE ON EARTH BY MARTINA IGINIGLOBAL COMMONSAPR 11TH 2024 The average global surface temperature last month was 14.14C, 0.10C higher than 2016, the previous hottest March on record. Recent trends in global surface air and sea temperatures last month are becoming harder to predict and explain, leaving climate scientists worried. Atmospheric and ocean surface temperatures continued to rise in March, reaching unprecedented levels and marking the tenth consecutive month to break records, scientists have confirmed. .The average global surface temperature last month was 14.14C, 0.10C higher than 2016, the previous hottest March on record. In a press release on Tuesday, the EU Earth observation agency Copernicus said the global average temperature for the past twelve months is the highest on record, 1.58C above pre-industrial levels and 0.7C above the 1991-2020 average.
Despite the gradual weakening of El Niño, a weather pattern associated with the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean that last year brought unprecedented heat across the world, marine air temperatures remained “at an unusually high level,” the agency said. The average global sea surface temperature was 21.07C, the highest monthly value since records began. In an exclusive interview with Earth.Org, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Johan Rockström said recent trends in global temperatures are worrying climate scientists. “We had seen El Niño conditions before, so we expected higher surface temperatures because the Pacific ocean releases heat. But what happened in 2023 was nothing close to 2016, the second-warmest year on record. It was beyond anything we expected and no climate models can reproduce what happened. And then 2024 starts, and it gets even warmer. We cannot explain these [trends] yet and it makes scientists that work on Earth resilience like myself very nervous.” Wednesday also marked the 400th consecutive day of record temperatures in the North Atlantic. “There has always been the assumption that the ocean can cope with this, that the ocean is able to absorb this heat in a predictable, linear way, without causing surprise or any sudden abrupt changes. Up until 2023. Because suddenly, temperatures [went] off the charts, and that’s what is so shocking,” Rockström told Earth.Org.....read on https://earth.org/world-sees-10th-consecutive-hottest-month-on-record-as-march-temperatures-soar-to-unseen-levels/
AND..................The mass coral bleaching event, the second in the past decade, comes amid relentlessly rising global sea temperatures. At least 53 countries have been experiencing mass bleaching of coral reefs since early 2023 in response to rising ocean temperatures, scientists have confirmed. In a joint press release on Monday, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) and the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) – a partnership of 101 international nations and countries to perverse reefs around the world – confirmed that the world is undergoing its fourth global coral bleaching event, the second in the past ten years. “From February 2023 to April 2024, significant coral bleaching has been documented in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres of each major ocean basin,” said Derek Manzello, coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch (CRW). Among the 53 regions where coral bleaching has been confirmed so far are Florida, Eastern Tropical Pacific nations including Mexico, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia, and Australia. Rising Temperatures......the event is directly related to rising sea surface temperatures,which last month reached a new record high of 21.07C, the highest monthly value since records began.https://earth.org/breaking-news/is-breaking-news/
