Oceans recorded record heat in May

“Ocean surface temperatures are already reaching record levels, and our data indicates that the average temperature of all ice-free seas in May 2023 was higher than any other May,” said deputy director of the European Copernicus service. climate change, Samantha Burgess, in a statement.

This latest bulletin is based on computer analysis generated from billions of measurements from satellites, but also from ships, planes and weather stations around the world. The data used by Copernicus dates back, in some cases, to 1950.

In relation to the temperature of the planet as a whole, the month of May was the second hottest on record.

Average ocean surface temperatures in May “were around 19,7°C, that is, 0,26°C above the 1991-2020 average,” a Copernicus spokesperson told AFP.

The ocean has absorbed about 90% of the increase in heat caused by human activity.

“May 2023 was the second warmest globally, as we watched the El Niño signal continue to emerge in the equatorial Pacific,” Burgess added.

El Niño is a natural climate phenomenon generally associated with rising temperatures, severe drought in some parts of the planet and intense rain in others.

It last appeared in 2018-2019 and gave rise to a particularly long episode of almost three years of La Niña, which causes opposite effects, including a drop in temperatures.

In early May, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) estimated that there was a 60% chance that El Niño would develop before the end of July and an 80% chance that it would happen before the end of September.

Added to the impact of greenhouse gases, this phenomenon could make the 2023-2027 period the hottest on record, this organization said weeks ago.

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