Skip to content Skip to footer

As CO2 Levels Hit New High, Earth Experiences Its Hottest May on Record

Atmospheric carbon dioxide reached 417.1 parts per million last month along with record high global temperatures.

Protesters hold a section of a banner reading "Crisis" during a Fridays for future demonstration, a worldwide climate strike against governmental inaction towards climate breakdown and environmental pollution.

The Earth just experienced its hottest May on record, scientists said Friday — just a day after it was announced that atmospheric CO2 levels hit a new high.

Scientists at Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announced the temperature record Friday. The agency said that globally, last month 0.63°C warmer than the 1981-2020 average for May. That tops the previous warmest May, which occurred in 2016, by 0.05°C.

The last 12-month period, C3S added, was nearly 0.7°C warmer than average.

“The last month has been the warmest May on record globally and this is unquestionably an alarming sign,” Freja Vamborg, a scientist at C3S, told CNBC.

The agency added in its new findings:

Outside Europe, temperatures were most above average over parts of Siberia, where they were up to 10°C above average. They were also much above average over western Alaska, along the Andes bordering Chile and Argentina, and over regions in West and East Antarctica. It was also much warmer than average over western North America, the far north and south of South America, north-western, central and south-western Africa, and south-eastern Asia.

The “highly anomalous” temperatures in parts of Siberia follow a warmer than ever April for the Arctic and evidence of the emergence of so-called “zombie fires” — reignited fires from last year’s Arctic wildfires that continued to survive by smoldering underground.

The new data from European scientists follows NOAA’s Thursday announcement that atmospheric CO2 levels also hit new highs last month.

The levels recorded at the Mauna Loa Observatory show a seasonal peak of 417.1 parts per million in May, the highest monthly reading ever recorded.

Record high daily averages hit last month had already sparked urgent calls for bold climate action.

The trend of the planet-heating gas in the atmosphere is unmistakable.

“Progress in emissions reductions is not visible in the CO2 record,” Pieter Tans, senior scientist with NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory, said in a statement. “We continue to commit our planet — for centuries or longer — to more global heating, sea level rise, and extreme weather events every year.”

The record atmospheric CO2 levels come as the global coronavirus pandemic has triggered global economic shutdowns, but the resulting emissions drops and pollution declines were not enough to budge CO2 levels.

Geochemist Ralph Keeling, who runs the Scripps Oceanography program at Mauna Loa, explained why, likening global emissions to “trash in a landfill.”

“People may be surprised to hear that the response to the coronavirus outbreak hasn’t done more to influence CO2 levels,” he said. “But the buildup of CO2 is a bit like trash in a landfill. As we keep emitting, it keeps piling up.”

“The crisis has slowed emissions, but not enough to show up perceptibly at Mauna Loa,” Keeling continued. “What will matter much more is the trajectory we take coming out of this situation.”

The new data comes as global policy makers mark World Environment Day, a moment United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres took to say, “To care for humanity, we MUST care for nature.”

“Climate disruption is getting worse,” Guterres said in his message, urging all parties to “commit to a green and resilient future.”

Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn

Dear Truthout Community,

If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.

We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.

Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.

There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.

After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?

It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.

We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.

We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.

Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.

We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.

With love, rage, and solidarity,

Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy