Record sea temperatures over an unprecedented stretch and on land for the tenth month in a row have unnerved climate scientists, driving the global average temperature rise beyond 1.5C since pre-industrial times.
Sea surface temperatures in March at 21.07C were the warmest on record for the 12th month in a row, Europe’s Earth observation agency said, confounding its climatologists.
“Myself and other climate scientists are asking whether this year is a blip, a phase change, whether the climate system is broken and behaving in a different way to what we expect,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.