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Cattle grazing the dried bed of Kerala’s longest river Bharathapuzha near Ottapalam, Palakkad
| Photo Credit: MUSTAFAH KK
This year’s February was the hottest February ever. So was this year’s January. This is in continuation of a streak: the last seven months of 2023 also marked record highs for those months. Records have been set and broken in successive years, which means that the world is heating up.
Not only are temperatures rising, but they are also rising at a faster rate than ever before. The gap between the record temperatures set in 2023 and 2024 and the old records from previous years which were broken are considerably wide, showing that the rise in temperature is rapid.
Chart 1 | The chart shows the monthly average global surface temperatures by year. The numbers 1 to 12 on the horizontal axis represent the months of the year, from 1 for January to 12 for December. For clarity, the year 2020 and the subsequent years are highlighted in red.
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In February 2024, the average temperature was 13.54°C, the warmest ever for any February. The previous record was set in 2016 when the average temperature touched 13.42°C. That record broke the previous record of 13.33°C, set in 2020.
In January 2024, the average temperature was 13.14°C, again the warmest ever for any January. The previous record was set in 2020 when it touched 13.02°C. That broke the previous record of 12.99°C, which was set in 2016.
Map 2 | The map shows the country-wise average monthly surface temperature as on February 15, 2024.
South Sudan in east Africa, and Ghana and Togo in west Africa, crossed the 30°C mark, which makes them the hottest countries on that date. In 62 countries, the average temperature on that day was over 25°C. In 41 countries, including India, it was over 20°C. India’s average temperature on that day was 20.17 °C.
While in terms of the global average, this year witnessed the hottest February, the same is not true for all the individual countries. For instance, of the 194 countries depicted on the map, only 58 witnessed their hottest February in 2024. These include many countries in Europe such as Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Croatia, Czechia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, and Switzerland. India’s hottest-ever February was recorded in 2006, when the average temperature was 21.94°C.
Chart 3 | The chart shows the monthly surface temperature deviations by year.
While the absolute temperatures in a month are depicted in Chart 1, the deviation from a specific month’s average surface temperature from the 1991- 2020 mean is depicted in Chart 3.
In February 2024, the deviation was +0.81°C. That is, the temperature that month was 0.81°C above the 1991-2020 average for February. This is the highest deviation ever recorded for a February. In January 2024, the deviation was +0.70°C, again the highest deviation ever recorded for a January.
Map 4 | The map shows the country-wise monthly surface temperature deviations compared to the 1991-2020 mean, as on February 15, 2024.
The deviation was over +2°C in most of Europe and northern America. Some parts of Africa and South America too recorded a similar high deviation on that date, while India’s was +0.3°C.
According to the Copernicus monthly bulletin, European temperatures in February 2024 were 3.3°C above the 1991-2020 average for February, with higher above-average temperatures experienced in central and eastern Europe.
Outside Europe, temperatures were above average over northern Siberia, central and north-west North America, most of South America, across Africa, and in western Australia.
Source: Our World in Data and Copernicus Climate Change Service
Also read |2023 recorded many of the hottest days on land and sea | Data
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