According to the European agency Copernicus on climate change, May 2020 was the warmest month ever recorded on the planet. Around the globe, the temperature was 0.63 ° C higher than the average for May for the period 1981-2010, according to a press release from Copernicus. "The planet is heating up and will continue to heat up, to the extent that we continue to emit greenhouse gases", recalls Hervé Le Treut, climatologist and professor at the Sorbonne, on Friday on Europe 1.
"We're pretty sure we're going to beat new levels of heat again"
While temperatures of almost 10 degrees above normal have even been recorded in Siberia, everything suggests that these records will not be the last. "These greenhouse gases are stored in the atmosphere and cause a warming which continues to grow. For the next 20 years, we are almost sure that we will beat even new heat levels. practically unavoidable at this stage ", worries the climatologist.
>> Find all of Nathalie Levy's programs in replay and podcast here
Because the consequences of this rise in temperatures are numerous. "We see the rise in sea level, recurrent periods of drought, larger forest fires than before, floods which can be very strong ... So we have multiple consequences, these multiple consequences occur everywhere on the planet and it is the mark of greenhouse gases, there is no doubt about it ", concludes Hervé Le Treut.