February became the ninth month in a row to set record-high global temperatures, EU scientists said on Thursday. The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said the world had its warmest February on record last month. The surface air temperature averaged 13.54 degrees Celsius, which was 0.81 degrees above the average for the previous 30 years. It was also 0.12 degrees higher than the previous warmest February ever measured in 2016. The Earth logged its warmest year ever in 2023, overtaking 2016 by a large margin. Copernicus announced in January that global warming had now exceeded 1.5 degrees …