This year ‘virtually certain’ to be warmest in 125,000 years, EU scientists confirm

Following data showed last month was the world’s hottest October in that period, European Union scientists said on Wednesday that this year is “virtually certain” to be the warmest in 125,000 years.

Last month smashed through the previous October temperature record, from 2019, by a massive margin, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said.

“The record was broken by 0.4 degrees Celsius, which is a huge margin,” said C3S Deputy Director Samantha Burgess, who described the October temperature anomaly as “very extreme”.

According to researchers in the field of climate change, the heat is a result of continued greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, combined with the emergence this year of the El Nino weather pattern, which warms the surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean.