May was world's second-hottest on record

The world experienced its second-warmest May since records began this year, a month in which climate change fuelled a record-breaking heatwave in Greenland, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Wednesday.

Last month was Earth's second-warmest May on record — exceeded only by May 2024 — rounding out the northern hemisphere's second-hottest March-May spring on record.

Global surface temperatures last month averaged 1.4˚C higher than in the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period, when humans began burning fossil fuels on an industrial scale, C3S said.

That broke a run of extraordinary heat, in which 21 of the last 22 months had an average global temperature exceeding 1.5˚C above pre-industrial times - although scientists warned this break was unlikely to last.

"Whilst this may offer a brief respite for the planet, we do expect the 1.5C threshold to be exceeded again in the near future due to the continued warming of the climate system," said C3S Director Carlo Buontempo.

WAM