November 2020 was warmest recorded, EU program says

The world just recorded the warmest November on record, according to a European Union climate organization. 

Data analyzed by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) shows that November was more than 0.1 degree Celsius hotter than Novembers in 2016 and 2019, which were previously considered the warmest. 

In a statement, the service described this as a “clear margin.”

The data also showed this past November was about 0.8 degrees Celsius warmer than the average temperature of Novembers 1981 through 2010.

In November 2020, places with “substantially higher than average temperatures” included parts of the U.S., South America, southern Africa, eastern Antarctica and most of Australia.

“These records are consistent with the long-term warming trend of the global climate,” said C3S Director Carlo Buontempo in a statement. 

“All policy-makers who prioritise mitigating climate risks should see these records as alarm bells and consider more seriously than ever how to best comply with the international commitments set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement,” he added. 

The finding follows a preliminary projection from the United Nations’s World Meteorological Organization which said that 2020 was slated to be the second-warmest year on record based on data from January to October. 

The U.N. group found that during that period, the average global temperature for 2020 was about 1.2 degrees Celsius higher than the baseline temperature for the years 1850 through 1900.