Last month was the hottest May on record across the world, according to new data.
CNBC reported that scientists at the Copernicus Climate Change Service revealed the numbers on Friday, which showed that the month of May featured temperatures that were up to 10 degrees Celsius warmer than the average in areas of Siberia, Alaska, and Antarctica.
Overall, May 2020 was 0.63 degrees Celsius warmer than the average May temperature between 1981 and 2010.
"The last month has been the warmest May on record globally and this is unquestionably an alarming sign," Copernicus scientist Freja Vamborg told CNBC.
"Even more concerning is the fact that average temperatures of the last 12 months have become one of the hottest 12-month periods ever recorded in our data set."
The scientists at the agency, which aims to inform Europe about climate issues, said the previous 12 months were roughly 0.7 degrees Celsius warmer than the average. And 2019 was the second-hottest year in recoded history.
The revelations come on the heels of another report that claimed carbon dioxide levels in the Earth's atmosphere hit a new high in May, at an average of 417.1 parts per million at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. That number surged by 2.4 parts per million from a year ago despite coronavirus-related shutdowns that have reduced carbon emissions worldwide since March when many businesses closed their offices and forced employees to work from home, thereby reducing the number of cars on the road.
"It illustrates how difficult it is — what a huge job it is — to bring emissions down," NOAA senior scientist Pieter Tans Tans told The Associated Press. "We are really committing the Earth to an enormous amount of warming for a very large time."
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