Global temperatures in April 2020 made it one of the warmest Aprils on record, Copernicus, a European climate change service, announced on Tuesday.
"Globally, April 2020 was on a par with the previous warmest April on record (April 2016)," Copernicus said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that it was cooler than that year by "an insignificant 0.01°C."
This past month was 0.08°C warmer than the third warmest April on record, 2019, and 0.70°C above the average recorded between 1981 and 2010.
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The most above-average temperatures compared to that 30-year period were recorded over the Eurasian regions (notably Siberia), Greenland, the Arctic Ocean, Antarctica and the Alaskan coast.
They were also well above average in Mexico, Western Australia and parts of Central and Western Africa.
In Europe, temperatures were well above average in the west of the continent, but remained below average in the northeast. That was also the case in central Canada and over parts of south and southeast Asia.
In Belgium, the Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) recorded an average temperature (measured over 24 hours) of 12.6°C in April for the Brussels commune of Uccle. This is above the normal temperature of 9.8°C. The RMI noted that the monthly average of maximum temperatures reached 18.3°C. This is the third warmest April since 1833, behind the records set in 2007 (20.5°C) and 2011 (19.6°C).
In late April, Copernicus published a report revealing that 2019 was Europe's warmest year on record, observing "a clear warming trend over the last four decades."
The Brussels Times
