July 2024 was 1.48C warmer than the average temperature for that month during the period 1850-1900, before the world started burning fossil fuels faster. Image: Shutterstock
IThe European Union’s climate watchdog said Thursday that 2024 will be the hottest year on record, despite 13 months of monthly temperature records ending in July.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said last month was the second warmest in the record books dating back to 1940, slightly cooler than July 2023.
Between June 2023 and June 2024, each month surpassed its own temperature record for the year.
„The streak of record-breaking months has come to an end, but only by a whisker,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S.
The global average temperature last month was 16.91 degrees Celsius, just 0.04C below July 2023, according to C3S’ monthly bulletin.
But „the overall environment hasn’t changed, our climate continues to warm,” Burgess said.
„The catastrophic effects of climate change will begin as early as 2023 and continue until global greenhouse gas emissions reach net zero,” he said.
Global temperatures from January to July were 0.70C above the 1991-2020 average.
The anomaly would need to decrease significantly later in the year in 2024 to be warmer than 2023 — „making 2024 the warmest year on record,” C3S said.
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Too hot to handle
July 2024 was 1.48C warmer than the average temperature for that month during the period 1850-1900, before the world started burning fossil fuels faster.
It’s punishing heat for hundreds of millions of people.
Earth recorded its two hottest days on record on July 22 and 23, when global average temperatures reached 17.6C, C3S said.
Scientists said the Mediterranean was caught in a heat wave without global warming as China and Japan sweated through their hottest July.
Record rainfall lashed Pakistan, wildfires ravaged western US states and Hurricane Beryl left a trail of destruction as it swept from the Caribbean to the US Southeast.
Temperatures for the oceans, which absorb 90 percent of excess heat caused by human activity, were the second warmest July on record.
Average sea surface temperature was 20.88C last month, only 0.01C below July 2023.
This marked the end of a 15-month period of heat records for the oceans.
However, scientists at C3S noted that „air temperatures over the ocean remained unusually high despite the oscillation of the El Niño weather pattern,” which aligns global temperatures with its opposite, La Nina, which has a cooling effect.
On Wednesday, World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Celeste Salo reflected on a year of „widespread, intense and extended heat waves”.
„It’s getting too hot to handle,” he said.