In 2025, Europe experienced the hottest month of March ever recorded.

The extreme conditions are taking place on a continent that is warming faster than any other, the European Union's Copernicus Earth observation programme has reported.

This month has seen "contrasting extremes of rainfall across Europe, with many areas recording the driest March and others the wettest March" in about half a century, said Samantha Burgess of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which runs the climate monitoring.

The world, meanwhile, marked the second-hottest March in the Copernicus dataset, continuing a nearly unbroken streak of record temperatures that has lasted since July 2023.

Since then, almost every month has been at least 1.5°C hotter than before the Industrial Revolution, when humanity began burning vast quantities of coal, oil and gas. | BGNES, AFP