Under the Paris climate agreement, countries around the world committed to limiting global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius — with a goal of keeping it as close as possible to 1.5 degrees. However, these targets are based on long-term temperature trends over decades rather than short-term fluctuations in individual months or years.
In Europe, April ranked as the sixth-warmest on record, according to data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Reflecting similar conclusions from other scientific reports, Copernicus also noted that large swaths of Central Europe, Scandinavia, and the United Kingdom are currently experiencing unusually low rainfall.
Meanwhile, global ocean temperatures remain exceptionally elevated. Scientists reported that average sea surface temperatures — excluding polar regions — reached 20.89°C in April, just shy of the record set the previous year. Warmer oceans fuel stronger storms, which can bring extreme rainfall and widespread flooding when they make landfall.
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