Drought fears in Europe amid experiences May was once international’s moment freshest ever

It has been an exceptionally dry spring in north-western Europe and the second one warmest May ever globally, in keeping with the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

Countries throughout Europe, together with the United Kingdom, had been hit by way of drought stipulations in fresh months, with water shortages feared except important rain comes this summer time, and crop screw ups starting to be reported by way of farmers.

The new Copernicus knowledge presentations that May 2025 was once the second-warmest May globally, with a mean floor air temperature of 15.79C, 0.53C above the 1991-2020 moderate for May. The month was once 1.4C above the estimated 1850-1900 moderate used to outline the pre-industrial degree. This interrupts a duration of 21 months out of 22 the place the worldwide moderate temperature was once greater than 1.5C above the pre-industrial degree.

Carlo Buontempo, director of C3S on the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), stated: “May 2025 breaks an unprecedentedly long sequence of months over 1.5C above pre-industrial. Whilst this may offer a brief respite for the planet, we do expect the 1.5C threshold to be exceeded again in the near future due to the continued warming of the climate system.”

The 1.5 levels is the local weather goal agreed by way of the 2015 Paris settlement. The goal of 1.5C is measured over a decade or two, so a unmarried 12 months above that degree does now not imply the objective has been ignored, however does display the local weather emergency continues to accentuate. Every 12 months prior to now decade has been one of the crucial 10 freshest, in information that return to 1850.

Dry climate has endured in lots of portions of the sector. In May 2025, a lot of northern and central Europe in addition to southern areas of Russia, Ukraine, and Türkiye had been drier than moderate. Parts of north-western Europe skilled the bottom precipitation and soil moisture ranges since a minimum of 1979.

In May 2025, it was once drier than moderate in a lot of north America, within the Horn of Africa and throughout central Asia, in addition to in southern Australia, and far of each southern Africa and South America.

May additionally noticed abnormally top sea floor temperatures within the north-eastern Atlantic, achieving the best possible ever recorded, in keeping with Copernicus.