Last month was the warmest March on record across Europe, that’s according to latest data from the EU’s climate service, Copernicus.
“It was also a month with contrasting rainfall extremes across Europe with many areas experiencing their driest March on record and others their wettest March on record for at least the past 47 years”, said climate scientist, Samantha Burgess.
The average temperature Europe-wide was 6.03°C, more than two degrees warmer than the average over a previous thirty year period.
March 2025 saw large parts of southern Europe see “wetter-than-average conditions”, particularly Spain and Portugal which were hit by a series of storms and saw widespread floods.
It was also wetter than average in Norway, Iceland and north-western Russia. Conversely, it was drier than average in the UK and Ireland.
Temperatures were “predominantly above average across Europe, with the largest warm anomalies recorded over eastern Europe and southwest Russia, although across the Iberian Peninsula, colder-than-average temperatures occurred.”
Outside Europe, it was warmer than normal over large parts of the Arctic, the US, Mexico, parts of Asia, and Australia, according to Copernicus.
Across the world, last month was the second-warmest March globally.
“March 2025 was the 20th month in the last 21 months for which the global-average surface air temperature was more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level”, scientists warn.
Climate change is blamed for the warmer conditions.
The European Union and China recently recommitted the Paris Agreement promising to keep global average temperatures well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and trying to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
When Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, he issued an executive order giving notice to the UN that the US will withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
The US administration said that the “disastrous” climate accord “unfairly ripped off our country”.
Greenpeace has warned that summer-like conditions enjoyed now could signal harsher heat waves and wildfires later in the year.
The environmental NGO also warned that extreme rainfall in southern Europe in March may result in lower crop yields this year.
“Extremes across the European region alone pose an immediate challenge to our food systems and to the economy as a whole. Europe’s citizens must not be left alone to pay for the chaos that dirty energy companies are fuelling”, Thomas Gelin from Greenpeace insisted.