Another record high temperature was reached in November: data from the Copernicus climate change monitoring service in fact revealed that average global temperatures in November 2020 were the highest ever recorded before for the month of November. The figure for the month that has just ended was 0.77°C higher than the 1981-2010 average, and more than 0.13°C above the previous warmest months of November in 2016 and 2019. Temperatures were mostly above average in a vast area covering much of northern Europe, Siberia and the Arctic Ocean, but also in parts of the United States, South America, southern Africa, the Tibetan Plateau, East Antarctica and much of Australia. With just one month to go before the end of the year, data from the Copernicus service for the current year shows that 2020 is now on a par with 2016, the warmest calendar year on record, followed closely by 2019.
These figures are symptoms of a long-term warming trend and underscore the need to take action to mitigate the risk of impacting climate change and to meet the limit of 1.5°C set by the 2015 Paris Agreement, which we are rapidly approaching. Again, according to Copernicus data, in the twelve months from December 2019 to November 2020, the average global temperature was 1.28 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels.
