For 421 straight months, Earth has been warmer than average.
January 2020 continued where 2019 left off, as the planet's relentless, long-term heating trend — stoked by skyrocketing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations — resulted in the warmest global January on record, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.
January 2020 squeaked past January 2016 by just fractions of a degree (0.03 Celsius), but it's really the long-term heating trend that's important, not any individual month. Overall, 2019 was the second hottest year on record, 19 of the last 20 years are now the warmest on record, and high-temperature records now absolutely dominate low-temperature records.
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Europe was exceptionally warm, as natural climate variations kept frigid air confined to the Arctic and away from Europe. But, as with all high-temperature records today, the planet's added background warming gives these temperature fluctuations an extra boost, often resulting in broken records.
Europe smashed its average January temperature record by over 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit (3.1C), with some areas experiencing temperatures that were a whopping 10 degrees (6C) warmer than average.
Though Earth overall was markedly warmer than average in January 2020, some places, like Alaska, were profoundly colder than usual, underscoring that within a heating climate, there is still, and will always be, variable weather.
Overall, Earth has warmed by a little over 2 F (1 C) since the 1880s. But, if carbon emissions continue rising with little to no efforts to slash fossil fuel use, the globe is currently on track to warm by around another 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit this century — if not more.
Even with the warming we've had so far, the consequences have been extreme, and foreshadow even worse devastation.
