Last month was the fifth hottest May on record 

Indians sleep on the roof of a house to beat the heat in New Delhi, India.

Last month was the joint fifth hottest May on record across the globe, with temperatures breaking records in the southwest of Europe, India, and Pakistan.

The European Commission-backed Copernicus Climate Change Service said that last month joined May 2018 and 2021 in the unenviable fifth place as the world warms due to climate change.

Although areas such as Spain saw records shattered for both maximum and minimum daily temperatures, there was a contrast with much of the rest of the continent, which saw temperatures come in below average for the month.

'Record-breaking'

"Record-breaking high values were experienced over the south-west of the continent, which came under the influence of winds from the Sahara that was hotter than average in the far west. France experienced its warmest May in records dating back to 1900, with numerous local records broken. 

"In Spain the city of Jaén experienced both its hottest ever May day and the highest daily minimum temperature ever recorded in May in mainland Spain. Portugal reported a heatwave in the first half of the month and an exceptionally hot night later in the month," Copernicus reported.

Temperatures were also much above average in a band stretching southward from western Siberia across central Asia to northern India and Pakistan, over the Horn of Africa, southern USA and Mexico, as well as Antarctica, Copernicus said.

When it comes to the spring season as a whole, or March to May inclusive, European temperatures were just below the 1991-2020 average, Copernicus said.

India and Pakistan saw some of the biggest spikes in spring, which locals on the ground described as "hell on earth".

"For Pakistan and northwestern India, located within a larger region of unusual warmth, the season was characterised by long-lived heatwave conditions and record-breaking averages of maximum and minimum temperatures," Copernicus said.

Sea ice

Elsewhere, Antarctic sea ice extent for May was 8% below the 1991-2020 average, ranking the sixth lowest in the 44-year satellite record. Sea ice extent describes the total area covered by some amount of ice.

"The largest anomalies occurred in polar regions. Temperatures were most above average over north-western and eastern Siberia, part of the Nunavit and Northwest Territories of Canada and much of Antarctica, especially over the Ross Ice Shelf," Copernicus said.

The Copernicus service analyses data "using billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world".