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Global temperatures are cooler in 2021 than other recent years

11 May 2021
Dan Ackermann
Data: NASA; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon/Axios

With a moderate La Niña event in the tropical Pacific Ocean, global temperatures in 2021 are running decidedly cooler when compared to recent years.

Why it matters: The lack of a new warmest year record in 2021 could sap some of the sense of urgency among policymakers in the U.S. and abroad during a critical year for enacting stricter emissions cuts to meet the Paris Agreement's targets.

The big picture: According to NASA, March was the coldest such month globally since 2014. New information from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a European agency, shows that April was also relatively cool, coming in as the seventh-warmest such month since 1979.

  • Europe was hit especially hard by cold snaps during April, breaking records in England and causing an agricultural disaster in France as winemakers saw their crops freeze on the vine.

Yes, but: Even with the recent cold in Europe and the cooling influence of La Niña, the planet is still headed for a top-10 or even top-5 warmest year finish, climate scientist Zeke Hausfather tells Axios. "This is well in line with the long-term warming trend."

Reality check: With human-caused global warming, it's the long-term trends that matter, not single years (despite their convenient news pegs).

  • "Scientists know climate change is happening against a backdrop of natural climate variability: There will always be winters and summers, La Niñas and El Niños," NASA climate scientist Kate Marvel tells Axios.
  • "I like to use a doping analogy: When an athlete uses banned substances, she's more likely to win. But she probably won't win every single time — nor is she expected to," Marvel said.

What we're watching: With drought worsening in the West and wildfires already breaking out, this could be another year in which climate change-fueled disasters dominate headlines in the U.S., negating any effects of a slight pullback in global temperature anomalies.

  • Also, the release this summer of the first tranche of a major climate assessment from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will help keep the topic on the news agenda.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.