EU Scientists: May Was World's Second-hottest on Record

FILE PHOTO: A man sits on a tangle of branches in the Sacramento River while staying cool during a heat wave in Sacramento, California, US May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Fred Greaves/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A man sits on a tangle of branches in the Sacramento River while staying cool during a heat wave in Sacramento, California, US May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Fred Greaves/File Photo
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EU Scientists: May Was World's Second-hottest on Record

FILE PHOTO: A man sits on a tangle of branches in the Sacramento River while staying cool during a heat wave in Sacramento, California, US May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Fred Greaves/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A man sits on a tangle of branches in the Sacramento River while staying cool during a heat wave in Sacramento, California, US May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Fred Greaves/File Photo

The world experienced its second-warmest May since records began this year, a month in which climate change fueled a record-breaking heatwave in Greenland, scientists said on Wednesday.

Last month was Earth's second-warmest May on record - exceeded only by May 2024 - rounding out the northern hemisphere's second-hottest March-May spring on record, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in a monthly bulletin, according to Reuters.

Global surface temperatures last month averaged 1.4 degrees Celsius higher than in the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period, when humans began burning fossil fuels on an industrial scale, C3S said.

That broke a run of extraordinary heat, in which 21 of the last 22 months had an average global temperature exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial times - although scientists warned this break was unlikely to last.

"Whilst this may offer a brief respite for the planet, we do expect the 1.5C threshold to be exceeded again in the near future due to the continued warming of the climate system," said C3S director Carlo Buontempo.

The main cause of climate change is greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. Last year was the planet's hottest on record.

A separate study, published by the World Weather Attribution group of climate scientists on Wednesday, found that human-caused climate change made a record-breaking heatwave in Iceland and Greenland last month about 3C hotter than it otherwise would have been - contributing to a huge additional melting of Greenland's ice sheet.

"Even cold-climate countries are experiencing unprecedented temperatures," said Sarah Kew, study co-author and researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

The global threshold of 1.5C is the limit of warming which countries vowed under the Paris climate agreement to try to prevent, to avoid the worst consequences of warming.

The world has not yet technically breached that target - which refers to an average global temperature of 1.5C over decades.

However, some scientists have said it can no longer realistically be met, and have urged governments to cut CO2 emissions faster, to limit the overshoot and the fueling of extreme weather.

C3S's records go back to 1940, and are cross-checked with global temperature records going back to 1850.



Hurricane Iona, Tropical Storm Keli Rumble in the Central Pacific off Hawaii

This satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Hurricane Iona forming in the central Pacific Ocean, Monday, July 28, 2025. (NOAA via AP)
This satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Hurricane Iona forming in the central Pacific Ocean, Monday, July 28, 2025. (NOAA via AP)
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Hurricane Iona, Tropical Storm Keli Rumble in the Central Pacific off Hawaii

This satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Hurricane Iona forming in the central Pacific Ocean, Monday, July 28, 2025. (NOAA via AP)
This satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Hurricane Iona forming in the central Pacific Ocean, Monday, July 28, 2025. (NOAA via AP)

A major hurricane was churning across the Pacific Ocean but was several hundred miles south-southeast of Hawaii and posed no threat to the islands, forecasters said Tuesday.

Hurricane Iona is one of two major weather systems in the central Pacific Ocean.

In its latest advisory, the Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center said Iona was about 765 miles (1,230 kilometers) away from Honolulu, with maximum sustained winds near 125 mph (205 kph), The AP news reported.

Additional strengthening was forecast later on Tuesday, with steady weakening expected to begin by Wednesday.

Hurricane Iona is the first named storm of the hurricane season in the central Pacific and emerged Sunday from a tropical depression. It continues to trek west over warm, open waters.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Keli has maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph), the NHC said Tuesday morning. It was about 890 miles (1,435 kilometers) southeast of Honolulu and was moving west at about 13 mph (20 kph).

No coastal watches or warnings were in effect for the storms.

The administrator of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency on Monday hosted a statewide conference call with all counties, during which the National Weather Service provided an assessment and status of the storms.

“All counties are monitoring,” agency spokesperson Kiele Amundson said in an email.

Another indirect impact from the weather systems could be swells, but they are relatively small and moving westward and won’t create anything significant, said Derek Wroe with the weather service in Honolulu.

However, a large swell is headed toward Hawaii after being generated several hundred miles east of New Zealand.

It’s expected to arrive in Hawaii by Thursday, about the same time the storms pass the state.

“People might wrongly attribute the swell energy to be from these tropical systems, but they’re actually not,” he said.