All the ice-free seas registered the highest temperatures for that month in May since there are data, both on the surface and in the air, as detailed in its report by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), a project coordinated and managed by the European Commission (EC).
"The El Niño signal continues to appear in the equatorial Pacific. Temperatures over the ocean are reaching record levels and our data indicate that the average temperature over all ice-free seas for May 2023 was higher than any other month in May," warns C3S Director Samantha Burgess.
According to the data collected by Copernicus, for the third time in 2023, the extent of Antarctic sea ice reached a record minimum monthly value for the time of year, standing 17% below the average.
Below-average ice concentrations were greatest in the Weddell, Bellingshausen and northern Ross Seas, while above-average concentrations continued to prevail in the Amundsen Sea. For its part, the extent of Arctic sea ice was very close to the average and was almost identical to that of May 2022.
In its latest monthly bulletin, which bases its analysis on billions of measurements from satellites, ships, planes and weather stations around the world, it highlights that last month was the second warmest May globally, at only 0.1 °C away from the first of the series.
On land, average temperatures were close to normal over most of Europe, although parts of Canada, Africa and Southeast Asia were significantly warmer than normal, while Australia and northwestern India south of Siberia, were noticeably colder.
"Temperatures for May 2023 were not far from their 1991-2020 climatological average across most of Europe. The month was slightly warmer than normal in the west of the continent and slightly cooler than normal in the central and eastern parts. It was substantially above normal only in the far northeast of the continent," he says in his latest report.
Outside Europe, May was drier than average over large parts of North America, central Russia, East and South-East Asia, the Horn of Africa, southern Africa, Australia and South America.
According to Copernicus, the wetter-than-average regions were southeast and southwest North America, southeast Africa, southern Brazil, Pakistan, and New Zealand. As for the boreal spring, it was drier than average in the Iberian Peninsula and most of Eastern Europe.
