The compounding of the northern cerebral hemisphere summer , adeveloping El Niño , andrising glasshouse gasesmade July the hottest month since record begin . That ’s no surprise , but the sizing of the startle has disturb climate scientists .
It will take a little while for all the datum to be verified , but a preliminary estimate by the European Union ’s Copernicus Climate Change Service guess orbicular average temperatures for the month will be 0.32 ° C ( 0.58 ° degree Fahrenheit ) hotter than the previous record month , June 2019 . That may not sound like much , but the record it broke was determine by just 0.04 ° C ( 0.07 ° F ) over July 2016 , which is much more the sort of increment we usually see . There ’s never been a jumping like this since global platter begin .
The figure quoted here come from theEuropean Centre for Medium - Range Weather Forecasts(ECMWF ) and do n’t include the last week of the calendar month . Other instruments and analyses produce slightly different bit , but all gibe that July was far beyond anything we have witness before . Nor are there any sign the end of July changed the overall picture .
July 2023 wasn’t just the hottest month ever, on this chart it sticks out like a sore thumbImage Credit: C3S/ECMWF.
“ disc - bring out temperature are part of the trend of drastic increases in global temperature . Anthropogenic emission are at long last the chief number one wood of these rising temperature , ” said ECMWF ’s Dr Carlo Buontempo in astatement . “ July ’s record is unlikely to remain isolated this twelvemonth , C3S ’ seasonal forecasts point that over land areas temperatures are likely to be well above modal , top the 80th percentile of climatology for the clock time of year ” .
“ The extreme conditions which has feign many million of citizenry in July is unfortunately the harsh reality of clime alteration and a foretaste of the futurity , ” agreed the World Meteorological Organization ’s Secretary - General Professor Petteri Taalas . “ The need to reduce glasshouse gas pedal emissions is more pressing than ever before . Climate action is not a luxury but a must . ”
Before last calendar month , the world had not had a single daytime averaging more than 17 ° C ( 62.6 ° F ) since disc began . In July there were 26 harmonise to the ( also preliminary ) estimate made by theClimate Reanalyzersite at the University of Maine .
These measurements exclude the regions more than 60 degrees from the equator, where few people live but events affect the rest of the planet. In this case, the result looks very similar.Image Credit: C3S/ECMWF
A global record meant too many local and regional ace to count . Prominent exercise include China ’s hot - ever maximum of 52.2 ° C ( 126 ° degree Fahrenheit ) on July 16 , a candidate for thehighest midnight readingever record ( 48.9 ° C , 120 ° F ) and possibly thehottest ocean temperature measurementtaken off Florida .
“ We know that this global heat record would have been virtually impossible without the consequence of humanity ’s nursery gas emissions,”saidDr Andrew King of the University of Melbourne .
