The world experienced the warmest May ever, with record heat, rain and floods wreaking havoc in many countries, according to new data released on Wednesday.

It was also the 12 consecutive month of record-high temperatures, a result of the combined effect of now weakening El Nino and human-caused climate change, the EU’s climate agency Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said.

The update from Copernicus coincided with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) prediction that there is an 80 per cent chance that one of the next five years will be at least 1.5° Celsius warmer than it was at the start of the industrial age.

It also said there is an 86 per cent chance that at least one of these years will set a new temperature record, beating 2023 which is currently the warmest year.

The global average temperature for May 2024 was 1.52° Celsius above the 1850–1900 pre-industrial average, marking the 11th consecutive month (since July 2023) at or above 1.5° Celsius, Copernicus said.

A permanent breach of the 1.5° Celsius limit specified in the Paris Agreement, however, refers to long-term warming over many years.

The European Climate Agency said the global average temperature for the last 12 months (June 2023-May 2024) is the highest on record, at 0.75° Celsius above the 1991–2020 average and 1.63° Celsius above the 1850–1900 pre-industrial average.

Carlo Buontempo, C3S Director, said: “It is shocking
but not surprising that we have reached this 12-month streak.

While this sequence of record-breaking months will eventually be interrupted, the overall signature of climate change remains and there is no sign in sight of a change in such a trend.”

“We are living in unprecedented times, but we also have unprecedented skill in monitoring the climate and this can help inform our actions. This string of hottest months will be remembered as comparatively cold but if we manage to stabilise the concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere in the very near future we might be able to return to these ‘cold’ temperatures by the end of the century,” he said.

According to climate scientists, countries need to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5° Celsius above the pre-industrial period to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Earth’s global surface temperature has already increased by around 1.15° Celsius compared to the average in 1850-1900 due to the rapidly increasing concentration of greenhouse gases — primarily carbon dioxide and methane — in the atmosphere.