The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the European Union, routinely publishes monthly climate bulletins reporting on the changes observed in global surface air temperature, sea ice cover and hydrological variables. All the reported findings are based on computer-generated analyses using billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world.For January 2020, the first month of this decade the news are not that good (January 2020 surface air temperature):
- The global temperature was warmer than any previous January in the data record, but only marginally so (by 0.03°C) in the case of January 2016
- For Europe, January was the warmest January, about 0.2ºC warmer than the previous warmest January – 2007, and 3.1°C warmer than the average January in the period 1981-2010
- Average temperatures were especially high over large parts of north-eastern Europe, in some areas more than 6°C above the 1981-2010 January average.
More information about climate variables in January and climate updates of previous months as well as high-resolution graphics can be downloaded HERE.
Copernicus is the European Union’s Earth observation program, which is largely based on satellite data, but also on measurements from weather stations, aircraft and ships.
