Climate change: Last month was the hottest April on record - in world's 11th record-breaking month in a row

It might be hard to believe in Britain, but April has continued an almost year-long trend of having the highest average temperature for that specific month ever recorded.

The European Union’s climate change service, Copernicus, has this week officially confirmed that April 2024 is the warmest ever recorded - with an average air temperature of 15.03C. It was 0.67C above the 1991 to 2020 average for April, and 0.14°C above the previous high, set in April 2016. This comes after the world experienced its hottest year on record in 2023 - with experts already warning 2024 might be even hotter.

April was the 11th month in a row to break temperature records, with the service noting particularly above-average temperatures in eastern Europe, the north and north-eastern US, Greenland, east Asia, northern parts of the Middle East, parts of South America, and most of Africa. Some Mediterranean countries have been much drier than usual, while others across the globe have been hammered by heavy rainfall - causing devastating floods.

The temperature record streak is unfortunately not just affecting air temperatures, with the global sea surface temperature average for April at 21.04°C - also the highest value on record for the month. This is the thirteenth month in a row to break heat records for that respective month in the sea.

Copernicus Climate Change Service director Carlo Buontempo said: “El Niño peaked at the beginning of the year and the sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical pacific are now going back towards neutral conditions.”

But, he warned, this would not solve the world’s problem. “Whilst temperature variations associated with natural cycles like El Niño come and go, the extra energy trapped into the ocean and the atmosphere by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases will keep pushing the global temperature towards new records.”

Concerningly, April was 1.58C warmer than the estimated April average for 1850-1900, the pre-industrial reference period set in the Paris Agreement. Almost every country in the world signed this agreement in 2015, to try and limit the average global temperature rise to 1.5C above this level - or 2C at the very most.

This is considered a dangerous tipping point, where climate scientists warn humans will have increasingly little control over how much temperatures continues to rise. It will also become harder for us to mitigate some of the most serious impacts of climate change.

Amber Allott is NationalWorld’s environment and sustainability specialist, covering all things green - from climate to conservation. If you liked this article you can follow Amber on X (Twitter) here and sign up for the free daily NationalWorld Today newsletter here - with Amber bringing you the UK's most important, pressing, weird and wonderful environmental stories every Tuesday.