EU claims 2019 as second hottest year on record

The European Union’s climate monitoring service said 2019 was the second hottest year on record and ended the hottest decade in history.

According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service’s (C3S) data, last year’s worldwide temperatures were second only to 2016, in which mercury rose 0.12°C owing to an exceptionally strong El Nino natural weather event.

The average temperature in 2019 was only a few hundredths of a degree below the 2016 level.

The five last years have been the hottest on record, and the period of 2010-2019 was the hottest decade since records began, C3S said.

Globally temperatures in 2019 were 0.6 Celsius warmer than the 1981-2010 average. Earth’s temperature over the last five years was 1.1-1.2°C warmer than pre-industrial times.

Last year was Europe’s hottest ever.

“2019 has been another exceptionally warm year, in fact the second warmest globally in our data set, with many of the individual months breaking records,” said Carlo Buontempo, head of C3S.

2019 was just 0.04°C cooler than 2016, which saw temperatures boosted by a once-in-a-century strength El Nino.