The five hottest years on record, ranked by their departure from the 20th-century average temperature. Courtesy of NOAA NCEI, Barbara Ambrose

Can We Take the Heat?

An unusually warm April is recorded in an unusually warm year in an unusually warm decade

April 2020 joined February and March as the second warmest globally on record for each month, following a January that was the hottest in 141 years of record-keeping, amid a string of five straight years of record global warmth. Meanwhile, a new study finds that unlivable measures of heat and humidity, predicted to occur decades down the road if climate change isn’t throttled, are being recorded now.

The latest data from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, announced yesterday:

• The average global temperature in April was 1.91 degrees Fahrenheit (1.06 degrees C) above the 20th-century average. The warmest April on record was in 2016.
• The eight warmest Aprils on record have all been since 2010.
• For 2020 so far, the global temperature is 2.05 degrees Fahrenheit (1.14 degrees C) above average, also ranking second behind 2016.

Seas are cooking, too. Ocean surface temperatures around the planet during April were, on average, 1.49 degrees Fahrenheit (0.83 C) above the 20th-century average. April’s ocean temperature was the highest since global records have been kept, starting in 1880.