Warmest May on record, Siberia 10C hotter: EU

PARIS: Temperatures soared 10 degrees Celsius above average last month in Siberia, home to much of Earth´s permafrost, as the world experienced its warmest May on record, the European Union´s climate monitoring network said on Friday.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said May 2020 was 0.63C warmer than the average May from 1981 to 2010, with above average temperatures across parts of Alaska, Europe, North America, South America, swathes of Africa and Antarctica.

Western Siberia in particular has been unusually warm for several months running, C3S senior scientist Freja Vamborg told AFP. "The really large anomalies started during January, and since then this signal has been quite persistent," she said by email. Globally, the average temperature for the twelve months to May 2020 is close to 1.3C above preindustrial levels, the benchmark by which global warming is often measured.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nearly 200 countries have pledged to cap the rise in Earth average surface temperature to "well below" 2C, and to 1.5C if possible.

The heatwave across parts of Siberia and Alaska will cause particular alarm in regions that were engulfed by huge forest fires last year fuelled by record heat, and where Copernicus has warned that "zombie" blazes smouldering underground may be reigniting. The monitoring network said that there were "highly anomalous" temperatures over Siberia throughout the March to May period.