Warming is predicted for the rest of the year, with the Earth's climate entering an El Niño phase again

Geneva, 11 April - The world's leading climate research institutions, the EU's Copernicus programme and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), predict that the oceans are entering an El Niño phase. This means that their surface temperatures will rise.

The oceans have been in a La Niña phase for the past two years, which cools surface temperatures. However, sea temperatures have still been very high. In March, the global sea surface temperature was 20.97 degrees, the second highest average March temperature ever recorded.

El Niño and La Niña are natural changes in ocean conditions, but human-induced global warming is continuously increasing sea water temperatures as heat in the air warms the water.

Warming ocean waters are leading to exceptional weather changes, such as regional droughts and heavy rains.

According to Copernicus, the global temperature in March was the fourth warmest on record. Temperatures were exceptionally high across much of Europe, as well as in Russia and Antarctica. Heat waves even occurred in North America.

SITA/WT.24