May 2023 third-warmest on record: NOAA
A map of the world plotted with some of the most significant climate events that occurred during May 2023. (Image credit: NOAA/NCEI)
NOAA – It was another warm month for the globe, with May 2023 ranking as the world’s third-warmest May on record.
Earth’s ocean surface temperatures also set a record high for the second month in a row, according to scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).
The average global May temperature was 0.97 of a degree Celsius above the 20th-century average of 14.8 C, ranking as the third-warmest May in 174 years. May 2023 marked the 47th consecutive May and the 531st consecutive month with temperatures above the 20th-century average.
Looking at continents, both North America and South America had their warmest Mays on record, while Africa, Asia and Europe each had their top 20 warmest Mays. Antarctica had a cooler-than-average May.
For a second month in a row, global ocean surface temperatures set a record high. Weak El Nino conditions emerged as above-average sea surface temperatures strengthened across the equatorial Pacific Ocean, prompting NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center to announce the arrival of El Nino conditions.
The March to May period — defined as the Northern Hemisphere’s meteorological spring and the Southern Hemisphere’s meteorological autumn — was also remarkably warm. The Northern Hemisphere’s spring was the third warmest on record at 1.29 C above average. The Southern Hemisphere’s autumn ranked second warmest on record at 0.83 C above average.
The year-to-date (January through May 2023) global surface temperature ranked as the fourth-warmest such period on record, 1.01 C above the 1901 to 2000 average of 13.1 C.
According to NCEI’s Global Annual Temperature Rankings Outlook, there is a virtually certain chance (greater than 99 per cent) that 2023 will rank among the 10 warmest years on record, and about an 89 per cent chance it will rank among the top five.
Globally, May 2023 saw the second-lowest sea ice extent (coverage) on record for the month. Only May 2019 had a smaller global sea ice extent. Last month’s Antarctic sea ice extent ranked lowest on record for May, at 1.94 million square kilometres below average. This was 492,100 square km below the previous Antarctic record low from May 2019. Arctic sea ice extent for May 2023 ranked 13th smallest in the satellite record, about 103,600 square km below average.
Three named storms occurred across the globe in May, all of which reached major tropical cyclone strength (winds of 179 km/h or higher). Two storms reached Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, with sustained winds of 253 km/h or higher. May 2023 tied 2008 and 2015 for the most major hurricanes in May. The global accumulated cyclone energy (called ACE, a metric that indicates the amount of energy released by a tropical cyclone during its lifetime) was the highest on record in May and about 10 per cent higher than the previous record set in 2015.
