Teresa Guerrero Madrid

Madrid

Updated Thursday, February 8, 2024-07:25

The high and atypical temperatures last month have made it the warmest January globally since records began, as indicated in the monthly report published this Thursday by the European Copernicus climate change service (C3S).

Scientific measurements that reflect what we have experienced in Spain during a winter month in which dozens of heat records have been broken, such as the 17 degrees measured in Navacerrada, 23.2ºC in Cuenca, 22.2ºC in Teruel or the 20.8ºC recorded in Soria and Ávila, according to data from eltiempo.es. In some areas of the Mediterranean it even touched 30 degrees, such as in the Valencian towns of Carcaixent (28.4 ºC) and Calles (28.9 ºC).

According to data from the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet),

last January was the warmest in Spain since 1961,

as it was 0.4°C higher than January 2016, so far the warmest since there have been measurements. Aemet says that it was "extremely warm" as a whole, with an average temperature over peninsular Spain of 8.4 °C, 2.4 °C more than the average for this month during the period 1991-2020 in our country.

World temperature

For its part, the monthly bulletin of the Copernicus network

places the global average surface air temperature at 13.14 °C,

which is 0.70 °C above the average during the period 1991-2020 for that month. . The new record beats January 2020 by 0.12 ºC, which until now was the warmest.

If we go back further in time, to the beginning of the industrial era, and compare the global temperature reached in January 2024 with the average for that month during the period 1850-1900, the difference is 1.66 ºC more .

The record for global average sea surface temperature

(SST) was also broken. for this month, with 20.97°C (exceeds by 0.26°C the previous record for a month of January, measured in 2016). Furthermore, since January 31, the daily SST (at coordinates 60°S-60°N) recorded new absolute records, surpassing the previous maximum values ​​of August 23 and 24, 2023.

"2024 begins with another record month: not only is it the warmest January on record, but

we have also just experienced a 12-month period with a temperature more than 1.5 ° C above the pre-industrial reference period"

Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), said in a statement

.

The researcher has urged "rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions", which she considers "the only way to stop the increase in global temperature."

Rains

Rainfall was irregular in Europe, according to the Copernicus bulletin. Although much of the continent was wetter than average due to squalls bringing rain to the north and south-west,

drier than normal conditions were recorded in the south-east and north of Spain

and the Maghreb, the south of the United Kingdom. , Ireland, eastern Iceland, most of Scandinavia, part of northwestern Russia and the eastern Balkans.

Regarding Aemet data on rainfall in Spain, January was between normal and wet in almost the entire Peninsula, except in the areas where it is most lacking, such as in Catalonia -in a state of emergency due to drought-, and Andalusia . There was also little rain in the Cantabrian coast, Navarra and northern Galicia, and very little in the Canary Islands.

Ice at the poles

As far as the poles are concerned, sea ice extent in the Arctic was close to average, being the highest for a January month since 2009. Sea ice concentrations were above average in the Greenland Sea ( a persistent feature since October) and the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, while below-average concentrations prevailed in the Labrador Sea.

On the contrary, in Antarctica the extent of sea ice marked the sixth lowest level for the month of January, being 18% below average.