Last month was the hottest January ever recorded in Europe, according to data published Tuesday by Copernicus, the European Union's climate change monitoring agency.

"The global temperature was warmer than any previous January in the data record, but only marginally so (by 0.03°C) in the case of January 2016," the agency said in a statement.

January 2020 in Europe was about 0.2ºC warmer than the previous record in 2007, and 3.1ºC above the average recorded between 1981 and 2010.

"Average temperatures were especially high over large parts of north-eastern Europe, in some areas more than 6°C above the 1981-2010 January average," the agency noted.

2019 marked the end of the warmest decade on record, Copernicus said last month, and the second warmest year ever measured.

2016 beat all temperature records due to the impact of the El Niño meteorological phenomenon.