This September was the warmest September ever recorded on earth, continuing a streak of months with above-average temperatures, new data has found.
Last month was 0.57 degrees Celsius warmer than the average for September from 1981 to 2010, according to new data released Friday by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, an organization funded by the European Union that tracks global temperatures.
READ MORE: June 2019 was the hottest ever recorded on Earth, European satellite agency says
The service says the average temperature last month was the warmest on record for September, narrowly beating the 2016 record by 0.02 degrees Celsius.
“Regions with the most markedly above-average temperatures included the central and eastern U.S.A., the Mongolian plateau and parts of the Arctic,” the service said in a statement. “Much-below-average temperatures were only recorded in a few regions, including southwestern Russia and parts of Antarctica.”
Last month was also the fourth month in a row to come close to or break a temperature record.
According to Copernicus data, this June was the hottest June ever recorded, followed by a record-breaking July. Similarly, August became the second-hottest August on record.
According to the Global Climate Report released last month by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Northern Hemisphere experienced its hottest summer on record since 1880.
The NOAA found the global average surface temperature tied the record from 2016, with temperatures 1.13 degrees Celsius above the 20th-century average.
“The recent series of record-breaking temperatures is an alarming reminder of the long-term warming trend that can be observed on a global level,” Jean-Noel Thepaut the director of Copernicus at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in a statement to the Washington Post.
“With continued greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting impact on global temperatures, records will continue to be broken in the future.”
According to the Copernicus data, global temperatures averaged between October 2018 and September 2019 were “much above” the 1981 to 2010 average over most of the Arctic, peaking over and near Alaska and over the central parts of northern Siberia. Temperatures were “above average” for almost all of Europe and over most other areas of land and ocean, especially northeastern China, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa and some parts of the Antarctic.
However, the service says temperatures were “below average” over much of Canada and one sector of Antarctica.
Globally, the 12-month period from October 2018 to September 2019 was 0.55 degrees Celsius warmer than the 1981-2010 average, according to Copernicus.
Copernicus also says 0.63 degrees Celsius should be added to these values to relate recent global temperatures to the pre-industrial level defined in the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 C.
This new data was released less than a week after world leaders gathered at the United Nations Climate Summit to share what their countries are doing in order to mitigate climate change and hit the targets outlined in the Paris Agreement to hold global warming to less than two degrees Celsius and set a goal of limiting the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
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