Globally, April saw a higher average temperature than any previous April on record, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). This result is not an anomaly: each of the 10 months prior also saw higher average temperatures than any of the comparable months since 1940, when C3S records begin.
The average surface temperature in April was 15.03ºC. That’s 0.67ºC above the 1991 to 2020 average for the month, and 0.14ºC above the previous high set in April 2016.
Compared with the estimated April average for 1850 to 1900, which C3S considers the pre-industrial reference period, this year was 1.58ºC warmer.
[See more: The Asian heatwave is shattering meteorological records]
While some places in the world – including Finland, Iceland and other Nordic regions – experienced a cooler April than average, Macao was not one of them. The SAR’s average temperature last month was 25.3ºC, the hottest it has been since data collection began in 1952.
Similarly, the average local maximum and minimum monthly temperatures in April were 28ºC and 23.4ºC, also shattering previous records for that month.
According to a report published by meteorologists earlier this year, the frequency of hot days in Macao may increase two fold by the middle of this century.
