Month after month, temperatures in 2019 keep breaking every record, demonstrating in an unmistakable way the advance of global warming.
After the hottest June ever recorded in Europe and in the world, and after July was confirmed as the hottest month in history, October 2019 has broken yet another record — raising inevitable concerns about the rapid advance of climate change and its grave consequences for the ecosystems of our fragile planet.
At a global level, October 2019 temperatures exceeded the average for the period between 1981 and 2010 by 0.69 degrees Celsius. By a narrow margin, it was the hottest October in the last four decades, differing only slightly from the same month in 2015 (+0.01 degrees Celsius) and 2017 (+0.09 degrees), which rank second and third respectively. This is according to the monthly bulletin published by Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the European agency responsible for climate monitoring.
Anomalously warm temperatures were recorded above all in the Arctic, the Middle East and much of North Africa and Russia; but also in Brazil, southern Africa, Australia and eastern Antarctica. Temperatures well below average were recorded, conversely, in the Pacific-facing regions of the United States and Canada.
And in Europe? Here, the record for the hottest October ever recorded still belongs to 2001, followed by 2006; 2019 comes in third place, with temperatures that nonetheless exceed the average recorded between 1981 and 2010 by as much as 1.1 degrees Celsius.
Looking more closely, the thermometer remained consistently above seasonal averages across virtually the entire continent; the only exceptions were the Scandinavian countries, Great Britain and the Baltic states.
Globally, Copernicus continues, the hottest year on record was 2016 (0.63 degrees above the average), followed by 2017 (0.54 degrees) and 2018 (0.46 degrees). In the period between November 2018 and October 2019, temperatures exceeded the 1981–2010 thirty-year average by 0.56 degrees Celsius, placing them 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. With the Paris Agreement, the international community had committed to doing everything possible to stay within 1.5 degrees, though the target horizon was 2100. And the Ipcc Special report 15 has already warned us: if this threshold is crossed, the effects will be severe and irreversible.
