People watch the sunset at a park on an unseasonably warm day,
Last month was the planet’s warmest February on record and the ninth consecutive month of record-breaking temperatures, according to data released Thursday.
February was more than 1.7 degrees Celsius warmer than an average February in preindustrial times, reported Copernicus, the European Union’s climate monitoring service.
The average global surface air temperature during the month was 13.54 degrees Celsius — or about 56 degrees Fahrenheit — and beats the previous warmest February, which was recorded in 2016.
The month was also part of a record-warm twelve-month period, according to the service, which reported that “the global-average temperature for the past twelve months is the highest on record, at 0.68 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average.”
The record-breaking temperatures reflect the long-term impacts of climate change and this winter’s El Niño, which was predicted to be historically strong.
“February joins the long streak of records in the last few months. As remarkable as this might appear, it is not really surprising as the continuous warming of the climate system inevitable leads to new temperature extremes,” Carlo Buontempo, the director of Copernicus, said in a statement, first reported by CNN.
According to the report, the daily global temperature was “exceptionally high” during the first half of February and was 2 degrees Celsius warmer than preindustrial periods for four consecutive days, Feb. 8-11.
The month’s average global sea surface temperatures measured at 21.06 degrees Celsius, the warmest of any month in the data set and higher than the previous record of 20.98 degrees Celsius set in August 2023.
The report’s findings come after a record warm 2023; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that 2023 was the hottest single year ever recorded.
Another new study warned that as temperatures continue to rise, Arctic Ocean sea ice is melting at an even faster pace than previously thought, and the region could experience its first ice-free conditions sometime before the 2030s.
SEC finalizes weakened climate disclosure rule |
The federal government will require some of the largest publicly traded companies to disclose their levels of greenhouse gas emissions under a new rule from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). |
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© AP Photo/Michael Probst |
The SEC voted 3-2 on Wednesday to require large companies to tell investors about greenhouse gas emissions directly caused by their business if that information would be likely to influence someone’s decision on whether to invest.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler, Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw and Commissioner Jaime Lizárraga — all Democrats — voted in favor of the rule, while Republican Commissioners Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda voted against it.
The rule will also require all publicly traded companies to disclose ways in which climate change poses significant risks to their business.
The rule represents a massive — and contentious — step in terms of what companies are required to tell potential investors about their vulnerability and contribution to climate change.
But it is significantly scaled back from what the agency proposed in 2022. That rule would have required all public companies to disclose their direct emissions and also made some companies report emissions from their supply chains and the use of their products.
Instead, as part of an effort to lighten the burden for companies, the SEC will only make large and midsize companies report their emissions that come from generating the electricity a company uses. They’ll have to report emissions for their fiscal years that start in 2026 and 2028, respectively.
Read more at TheHill.com. |
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