May 2025 second warmest on record: EU climate monitor

PARIS (AFP) — Global heating persisted as the new norm, with last month the second warmest May on record on land and in the oceans, according to the European Union’s climate monitoring service.

The planet’s average surface temperature dipped below the threshold of 2.7F (1.5C) above preindustrial levels, just shy of the record for May set last year, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

The same held for the world’s oceans. With a surface temperature of 69.4F (20.79C), last month was second only to May 2024, with some unprecedented warmth regionally.

“Large areas in the northeast North Atlantic, which experienced a marine heatwave, had record surface temperatures for the month,” Copernicus reported. “Most of the Mediterranean Sea was much warmer than average.”

The increasingly dire state of the oceans is front-and-center at the third U.N. Ocean Conference, which kicked off Monday in Nice, France.

Ocean heatwaves are driving marine species to migrate, decimating coral reefs, damaging ecosystems, and reducing the ability of ocean layers to mix, which hinders the distribution of nutrients.

Covering 70% of the globe’s surface, oceans redistribute heat and play a crucial role in regulating Earth’s climate.

Surface water warmed by climate change drive increasingly powerful storms, causing new levels of destruction and flooding in their wake.

Some parts of Europe, meanwhile, “experienced their lowest levels of precipitation and soil moisture since at least 1979,” Copernicus noted.

Britain has been in the grips of its most intense drought in decades, with Denmark and the Netherlands also suffering from a lack of rain.

Persistent dry conditions have also led to the lowest spring river flow across Europe since records began in 1992.

‘Brief respite’

Boreal forests across Canada, northern Europe and Siberia saw the second warmest spring on record, fueling forest fires in Canada where two provinces declared a state of emergency.

Ten days into June, more than 220 actives fires burned across the country, half of them classified as out-of-control.

Earth’s surface last month was 2.5F (1.4C) above the preindustrial benchmark, defined as the average temperature from 1850 to 1900, before the massive use of fossil fuels caused the climate to dramatically warm.

“May 2025 interrupts an unprecedentedly long sequence of months above 1.5C,” noted Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

All but one of the previous 22 months crossed this critical threshold, which marks the 2015 Paris Agreement’s most ambitious target for capping global warming.

“This may offer a brief respite for the planet, but we expect the 1.5C threshold to be exceeded again in the near future due to the continued warming of the climate system,” he added.

Over the 12-month period June 2024 to May 2025, warming averaged 2.83F (1.57C) compared to the 1850-1900 benchmark.

The Paris treaty target, however, is pegged to a 20-year average, in order to account for the influence of natural variability.

The U.N.’s climate science advisory panel, the IPCC, has said there is a 50% chance of breaching the 2.7F (1.5C) barrier in line with these criteria between 2030 and 2035.

Using this method of calculation, the world today has warmed by at least 2.3F (1.3C).

The U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization, meanwhile, has said there is a 70% chance the five-year period 2025-2029, on average, will exceed the 2.7F (1.5C) limit.

Scientists stress the importance of limiting global warming as soon and as much as possible because every fraction of a degree increases the risks of more deadly and destructive impacts, on land and in the sea.

Limiting warming to 2.7F (1.5C) rather than 3.6F (2C) would significantly reduce the most catastrophic consequences, the IPCC concluded in a major report in 2018.

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By JULIEN MIVIELLE Agence France-Presse