The world recently experienced the fifth warmest February ever recorded. The EU's climate service Copernicus reported this in a report, according to the AFP news agency.
The average global temperature last month was 1.49 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Pre-industrial times are defined as the period from 1850 to 1900, before fossil fuels were used on a large scale.
In Europe, the average temperature was minus 0.07 degrees. February 2026 is therefore among the three coldest months that the EU's climate service has recorded in Europe in the past 14 years. There were large differences in temperatures and precipitation in Europe. Countries in western, southern and southeastern Europe in particular had warmer temperatures than normal.
On the other hand, according to Copernicus' monthly report, it was colder in Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries, as well as the three Baltic countries and northwestern Russia. Virtually all of Denmark was affected by winter weather in February with temperatures down to minus 15 degrees at night.
The global average temperature in February was particularly driven up by the United States, northeastern Canada, the Middle East, countries in central Asia and eastern Antarctica.
Sea surface temperatures in February were the second highest ever recorded for the second month of the year, writes Copernicus. In the Arctic, the average amount of sea ice was five percent below the normal level for February.
In Antarctica, sea ice was very close to the normal level for the month. This is in contrast to the past four years, where the amount has been well below the average level.
In January, Copernicus published a report showing that 2025 was the third warmest year ever measured on the planet.
/ritzau/
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