LAST MONTH WAS the warmest March in recorded history in Europe, an EU climate body has warned.

Copernicus Climate Change Service announced yesterday that March 2025 was the second-warmest March globally, with temperatures far above pre-industrial levels.

Globally, an average surface air temperature of 14.06 degrees was recorded for the month – over half a degree above the 1991-2020 average, and 1.6 degrees above the pre-industrial level for March.

It was also the 20th time in the last 21 months that the average global surface air temperature was more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the monthly pre-industrial level.

In Europe, the average temperature last month was 6.03 degrees, almost 2.5 degrees above the 1991-2020 average for March, making it the warmest March for Europe.

Outside Europe, temperatures were most above average over large parts of the Arctic, in particular over the Canadian Archipelago. They were also above average over the United States, Mexico, parts of Asia, and Australia.

Temperatures were most below average over northern Canada and eastern Russia.

March also saw wetter-than-average conditions for most of southern Europe, particularly Spain and Portugal which were hit by a series of storms and saw widespread floods.

Further wetter-than-average regions include Norway, parts of Iceland and north-western Russia.

Conversely, it was drier than average in Ireland.

Arctic sea ice was 6% below average, marking the lowest March extent in the 47-year satellite record.

This was the fourth consecutive month in which the Arctic sea-ice extent reached a record low for that time of year.