European Union scientists say last month was the hottest March ever recorded. New figures from the EU's Copernicus Climate Service extend the world's run of record-breaking air temperatures to 10 consecutive months. The average was 0.1 Celsius above the previous high set in 2016, a significant margin by global standards. Our climate editor, Justin Rollout, reports.

Last week, the President of Zimbabwe declared a national disaster disaster because of a deep drought in the country. Low rainfall has slashed crop yields, driving up food prices, and putting an estimated 2.7 million people at risk of hunger. It is just one example of a pattern of heat and drought affecting countries as far afield as Southern Europe and Southeast Asia. This graph shows how March continued the world's run of record-breaking monthly temperatures. This extreme heat has got many climate scientists worried.

The reality is that we can quantify a large proportion of the extra heat that's causing these records, but not all of it. So there needs to be a lot more science, and there will be much more science coming out over the next weeks and months to try and understand what's happening to our climate system, and are we in a new phase?

Scientists agree what is causing climate change. It is the vast quantities of planet-warming gasses humanity has been pumping into the atmosphere. And in recent months, a recurring weather event known as El Niño has been adding an extra blast of heat into the air. That is weakening now, so temperatures should begin to fall back later in the year. The problem is, sea temperatures remain extremely high, hitting many of the world's coral reefs hard. That suggests global temperatures might not fall back as expected. A sign fear some scientists that the world could be entering a new phase of more rapid climate change. Justin Rollat, BBC News.

Let's get some analysis now with Dr. Chloe Brimekam, Climate Scientist and Heatwave Research at the University of Graz in Austria. Welcome to you. Thanks very much for being with us. What are your thoughts, your analysis on this latest report in these figures?

I think that it's now not a surprise to see these temperature records being broken month month on month. As Justin Rollout was saying, we know that this is to do with El Niño also adding heat into the system. We're seeing these temperatures consecutively broken, but also the extreme weather events like that in Zimbabwe that we're seeing and elsewhere in the world.

What consequences do you think we're likely to see in the coming months?

We're coming into the summer season in the northern hemisphere, and that's where most people live. We know that we're going to likely to see an increase in the number of heat waves. I can't sell you exactly right now because it's too far in advance, but we are likely to see heat waves, increase in drought conditions, but also increases in things like flash flooding and wildfires. It's basically the same as what we've seen in past summers in recent years. It is quite concerning that we might be entering a new climate phase.

Yeah, and we have seen record-breaking temperatures both on land and in the sea over the past several months, haven't we? We constantly hear about a tipping point where climate change accelerates and becomes unstoppable. Are you fearful that we've reached that point?

I think that we all need to be hopeful. So tipping points are two sides of a coin, and so we have positive social tipping points. So if we all come together like we did on COVID, we can basically It's never too early to start slowing the tide on climate change and making things better for basically all of us. We've also seen reports in the news recently of the price of chocolate rising because of climate change. I think we keep seeing these reports and it's affecting Europe also growingly, and we just need to act on it. We know what we need to do. We know we need a transition to net zero. We know we need to put in place support for countries in the global south for the worst impacts of climate change. Now is the time to start acting. Hopefully by month 11 of record-breaking temperatures, we will hopefully start to see that.

Yeah, you say now is the time to start acting. I mean, sadly, we've heard that for many years, haven't we? The UN holds a climate conference every year, COP, where countries commit to various things with regards to emissions targets. Do you feel that the world leaders have come to grips with this? They are dealing with this. And if not, why not? What is stopping us?

I don't think that world leaders have come to grips with this. I think there are probably standout nations that are doing more than others. I think that it's very difficult because at COP, you're trying to call for global consensus, and it's very difficult to get everybody to agree on one thing. The standout environmental standard that does that is the Montreal Protocol, which stopped CFCs and started closing the ozone hole. If we can get the same commitment from countries and the same progress, we could have that same turnaround for climate change. It's just getting the commitment there and putting national five-year agendas behind us and thinking of long-term goals. I think that's what been the challenge, but also the communication and just how urgent this actually is and the realization that this is affecting societies right now, and we need to act on this right now, not in a hundred years' time. Dr.

Chloe Brumick, I'm really interested in to get your thoughts and analysis. Thank you.

Thank you.