No relief following hottest March

HOT and humid weather will continue to prevail in most parts of the country, the state weather bureau said Tuesday, as Europe’s climate monitor said March was hottest on record in the world for the 10th straight month.

Weather specialist Rhea Torres said the entire archipelago would remain free from any weather disturbance forming or entering the Philippine area of responsibility in the coming days.

She said only the weather system — easterlies, winds coming from the east that pass through the Pacific Ocean that carry humid and warm weather — were affecting Metro Manila and the rest of the country.

Commuters along Commonwealth Ave. in Quezon City on Wednesday cover their heads from direct sunlight as the country experience the hottest heat index

However, the easterlies would also bring isolated downpours or thunderstorms in some areas, especially during late afternoon or at night, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said.

It reiterated its usual reminder to the public to stay hydrated and limit time spent outside, particularly late morning until mid-afternoon, when the scorching heat is most felt.

“If you cannot avoid going out, make sure to regularly drink plenty of water and bring covers like hats or umbrellas,” Torres said.

Pagasa’s weather advisory came as Europe’s climate monitor said that March was the hottest on record for the 10th straight month of historic heat, with sea surface temperatures also hitting a “shocking” new high.

It is the latest red flag in a year already marked by climate extremes and rising greenhouse gas emissions, spurring fresh calls for more rapid action to limit global warming.

Every month since June 2023 has beaten its “hottest ever” tag — and March 2024 was no exception.

The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said that March globally was 1.68 degrees Celsius hotter than an average March between 1850-1900, the reference period for the pre-industrial era.

The March record was only broken by 0.1 C, but it is the broader trend that was more alarming, said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S.

Huge swathes of the planet endured above-average temperatures in March, from parts of Africa to Greenland, South America and Antarctica.

It was not only the 10th consecutive month to break its heat record but capped the hottest 12-month period on the books — 1.58 C above pre-industrial averages.

This doesn’t mean the 1.5 C warming limit agreed by world leaders in Paris in 2015 has been breached — that is measured in decades, not individual years.

Nonetheless, “the reality is that we’re extraordinarily close and already on borrowed time,” Burgess said.

The UN’s IPCC climate panel has warned that the world will likely crash through 1.5 C in the early 2030s.

Incredibly unusual

The story at sea was no less “shocking,” Burgess said, with a new record for global ocean surface temperature set in February eclipsed once again in March.

“That’s incredibly unusual,” she said.

Oceans cover 70 percent of the planet and have kept the Earth’s surface liveable by absorbing 90 percent of the excess heat produced by carbon pollution from human activity since the dawn of the industrial age.

Hotter oceans mean more moisture in the atmosphere — scientists say the air can generally hold around 7 percent more water vapor for every 1 C of temperature rise.

This leads to increasingly erratic weather, like fierce winds and powerful rain.

Russia is reeling from some of its worst flooding in decades, while parts of Australia, Brazil and France experienced an exceptionally wet March.

“We know the warmer our global atmosphere is, the more extreme events we’ll have, the worse they will be, the more intense they will be,” Burgess said.

Copernicus said the cyclical El Niño climate pattern, which warms the sea surface in the Pacific Ocean, leading to hotter weather globally, continued to weaken in March.

But its “warming effect” alone did not explain the dramatic spikes witnessed this past year and projections for the coming months still indicated above-average temperatures, Burgess said.

Countries, meanwhile, continue to pump ever more planet-heating emissions into the atmosphere even as scientists say they need to fall by almost half this decade to keep the Paris goals within reach.

Levels of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — the three main human-caused greenhouse gases — rose for another year in 2023, scientists from the US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Friday.

“Until we get to net zero, we will continue to see temperatures rise,” Burgess said.