<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Earth had its joint second-warmest March on record with Antarctic sea ice shrinking to its second-lowest extent for that month, the EU's climate monitoring agency said on Thursday.</b></span><br></div><div><br></div><div>"The month was jointly the second-warmest March globally," tied with 2017, 2019 and 2020, the Copernicus Climate Change Service said. The hottest March on record was in 2016.</div><div><br></div><div>Its report is based on computer-generated analyses using billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world.</div><div><br></div><div>It said temperatures were above average over southern and central Europe and below average over most of northern Europe.</div><div><br></div><div>They were far warmer than average over much of North Africa, southwestern Russia, Asia, northeastern North America, South America including drought-stricken Argentina, Australia and coastal Antarctica.</div><div><br></div><div>Conversely, it was much colder than average over western and central North America, the agency said.</div><div><br></div><div>Global warming is causing sea ice to decline and sea levels to rise, raising warnings that dangerous tipping points could be reached.</div><div><br></div><div>Copernicus said Antarctic sea ice extent was the second lowest for March in the 45-year satellite data record, at 28 percent below average.</div><div><br></div><div>It reached 3.2 million square kilometres on average, 1.2 million sq km below the 1991-2020 average for the month.</div><div><br></div><div>It had reached the smallest area on record in February for the second year in a row, continuing a decade-long decline.</div><div><br></div><div>In the north meanwhile, Arctic sea ice extent was four percent below average and joint fourth lowest for March on record, though concentrations were above average in the Greenland Sea.</div><div><br></div><div>As temperatures rise globally because of human-caused climate change, Copernicus data show the past eight years were the eight warmest on record.</div><div><br></div><div>A UN report warned in March that those record-breaking temperatures would figure among the coolest within three or four decades, even if planet-warming emissions drop quickly. Source: AFP&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>