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Athit Perawongmetha

April marked an 11th consecutive month of record global heat, the latest sign that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/04/19/record-temperatures-heat-climate/" target=_blank>humans are in uncharted climate territory</a>.

But there is reason to predict planetary temperatures could moderate soon, though they would remain far above old normals because of human-caused global warming.

“If 2024 continues to follow its expected trajectory, global temperatures will fall out of record territory in the next month or two,” Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist with the payments company Stripe, wrote in a <a href="https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/warmest-april-on-record-but-a-possible" target=_blank>newsletter</a>.

For now, the spate of unprecedented global heat continues to be felt around the world.

April began with a heat wave across West Africa that was so intense, an <a href="https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/extreme-sahel-heatwave-that-hit-highly-vulnerable-population-at-the-end-of-ramadan-would-not-have-occurred-without-climate-change/" target=_blank>analysis </a>determined it would have been “virtually impossible” without the influence of human-caused planetary warming.

The month ended with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/04/30/southeast-asia-heat-india-thailand-philippines/" target=_blank>a stretch of record-setting heat across Southeast Asia</a>, with temperatures surging well above 100 degrees and up to 120 degrees in some areas from India to the Philippines.

But data suggests a diminishing trend in the margins by which average global temperatures are setting records.

Hausfather called it “gobsmackingly bananas” when <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/10/03/september-global-temperature-record-climate/" target=_blank>September set a new monthly average global temperature record</a> by an unprecedented margin of 0.5 degrees Celsius. October set a record by a margin that was nearly as large and marked what was then <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/11/09/earth-hottest-months-climate-warming/" target=_blank>the hottest 12-month period ever observed</a>.

Preliminary data shows last month was 0.1 to 0.2 degrees Celsius warmer than the next-hottest April, a significant margin but relatively closer to past observations.

Climate scientists said it could be a sign that the surge of global warmth over the past year is beginning to wane, if only slightly.

That is because of the imminent end of a historically strong episode of the planet-warming climate pattern <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/06/08/el-nino-effects-global-warming-weather/" target="_blank">El Niño, which began nearly a year ago</a>. During El Niño, warm waters pool along the equator in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean, releasing heat into the atmosphere and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/05/01/el-nino-la-nina-weather-climate/" target="_blank">triggering extreme heat waves, droughts and floods around the world</a>.

Climate models suggest that a rapid switch to the relative cooling influence of La Niña appears increasingly likely this summer or fall. During La Niña, cooler-than-average surface temperatures dominate the eastern and central equatorial Pacific.

Baba Ahmed

That could mean this year approaches but does not quite match the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/01/09/record-hot-year-2023-global-temperatures/" target=_blank>record average global heat observed on an annual basis in 2023</a>, scientists said.

Berkeley Earth climate scientist Robert Rohde recently predicted 2024 would end as the warmest or second-warmest year on record. Hausfather said that while the year has so far averaged about 1.7 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, before the influence of humans’ fossil fuel consumption began, it is likely to end about 1.5 degrees above that benchmark.

How rapidly global temperatures moderate, if at all, will be key in gauging whether climate change is accelerating, NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt wrote in a Nature <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00816-z" target=_blank>column </a>in March. If La Niña develops and the record warmth does not moderate, it could signal that humans have “fundamentally altered” Earth’s climate system, he said.

Pulitzer Prize finalist for breaking news, 2016

First place for outstanding beat reporting, Society of Environmental Journalists, 2023

University of Maryland at College Park, BA in Journalism

University of Maryland at College Park, Master's of Public Policy

Scott Dance is a reporter for The Washington Post covering extreme weather news and the intersections between weather, climate, society and the environment. He joined The Post in 2022 after more than a decade at the Baltimore Sun.

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