Earth had second-warmest March on record: Monitor

PARIS: Earth had its secondwarmest March on record with Antarctic sea ice shrinking to its second-lowest extent, the EU’s climate monitoring agency said on Thursday. “The month was jointly the second warmest March globally,” said areport from the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

The report is based on computer-generated analyses using billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world. It said temperatures were above average over southern and central Europe and below average over most of northern Europe.

They were far warmer than average over much of North Africa, southwestern Russia, Asia, northeastern North America, South America including drought-stricken Argentina, Australia and coastal Antarctica. Conversely, it was much colder than average over western and central North America, the agency said.


Copernicus said Antarctic sea ice extent was the second lowest for March in the 45-year data record, at 28% below average. It had reached the smallest area in February for the second year in a row. In the north meanwhile, Arctic sea ice extent was 4% below average and joint fourth lowest for March on record. Copernicus data show the past eight years were the eight warmest on record.