Notable & Quotable: Experts on May’s record heat and the Arctic’s future
Climate scientists with the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) confirm that May 2025 was the second-warmest May on record—surpassed only by May 2024—the Arctic region, which is warming at a rate four times the average, extreme warmth is accelerating ice melt, destabilizing weather systems and disrupting ecosystems. Here are six impactful insights about this alarming report.
1. Carlo Buontempo, Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service
“May 2025 breaks an unprecedentedly long sequence of months over 1.5 °C above pre‑industrial … Whilst this may offer a brief respite for the planet, we do expect the 1.5 °C threshold to be exceeded again in the near future due to the continued warming of the climate system.” reddit.com+5apnews.com+5apnews.com+5reuters.com+1illuminem.com+1
2. Sarah Kew, World Weather Attribution / Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
“Even cold‑climate countries are experiencing unprecedented temperatures.” reuters.com
3. Friederike Otto, Associate Professor, Imperial College London
“Without human‑caused climate change, [this heatwave] would be ‘basically impossible.’” apnews.com+2apnews.com+2adn.com+2
4. Waleed Abdalati, Environmental Sciences Institute Director, University of Colorado Boulder
“The nature of weather in the Northern Hemisphere is directly tied to what’s happening in the Arctic, because that ice floor basically at the bottom of the atmosphere helps determine the weather patterns that we get.” apnews.com+1apnews.com+1
5. Dr Halldór Björnsson, Group Leader, Icelandic Meteorological Office
“In recent years, my colleagues and I in the Climate Group at the Icelandic Meteorological Office have noticed unusual weather extremes, such as rainfall events that far exceed in rainfall duration and amount, anything expected based on prior data. In short the old statistics do not apply.”
6. Maja Vahlberg, Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre
“In the Arctic, local populations have built communities on weather conditions that have been stable for centuries… What we are witnessing is not just an isolated event, but a change in weather statistics.” illuminem.com
7. “Human‑caused climate change boosted Iceland and Greenland’s temperatures by several degrees during a record‑setting May heat wave,” from AP News
“Human‑caused climate change boosted Iceland and Greenland’s temperatures by several degrees during a record‑setting May heat wave, scientists said in an analysis released Wednesday.” reddit.com+9apnews.com+9sej.org+9
