Last month was the hottest January on record, Europe's climate monitor said Thursday, despite expectations that cooler La Nina conditions might quell a streak of record-breaking global temperatures.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service said January was 1.75C hotter than pre-industrial times, extending a persistent run of historic highs over 2023 and 2024, as human-caused greenhouse gas emissions heat the planet.

Climate scientists had expected this exceptional spell to subside after a warming El Nino event peaked in January 2024 and conditions gradually shifted to a cooling La Nina phase.

But the heat has lingered at record or near-record levels ever since, sparking debate among scientists about what other factors could be driving warming to the top end of expectations.

"This is what makes it a bit of a surprise... you're not seeing this cooling effect, or temporary brake at least, on the global temperature that we were expecting to see," Julien Nicolas, a climate scientist from Copernicus, told AFP.

La Nina is expected to be weak and Copernicus said prevailing temperatures in parts of the equatorial Pacific Ocean suggested "a........

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