On July 21, the worldwide average temperature hit a record high of 17.09 degrees Celsius, making it the hottest day on Earth in at least 84 years, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
This comes after a run of temperatures that have broken records; June was the 12th straight month that the world’s temperature has reached or surpassed the 1.5 degree Celsius level. Since June of last year, every month has been the warmest on record.
According to preliminary data from C3S, July 21 broke the previous record of 17.08 degrees Celsius set on July 6, 2023, and became the hottest day since at least 1940.
The notable distinction between the temperatures recorded since July 2023 and those recorded in every other year is this.
The record for the Earth’s daily average temperature, which was established in August 2016, was 16.8 degrees Celsius prior to July 2023. Nonetheless, there have been 57 days with temperatures above that previous record since July 3, 2023.
The disparity between the temperatures over the last 13 months and past records is remarkable, according to C3S director Carlo Buontempo.
“We are now in truly uncharted territory and as the climate continues to warm, we are bound to see new records in the coming months and years,” he stated.
According to analysis, the annual maximum daily global temperatures in 2023 and 2024 have been far higher than in prior years. The ten years from 2015 to 2024 have the greatest average daily temperature.
Due to the northern hemisphere’s summer, the world average temperature often peaks between late June and early August. The northern hemisphere’s land masses warm more quickly than the oceans in the southern hemisphere can cool.
A new daily average temperature record was not entirely unexpected, with global average temperatures already hovering around record highs.
C3S scientists attributed the sudden rise in daily global temperatures to much higher-than-average temperatures over large parts of Antarctica. Such large anomalies are not uncommon during the Antarctic winter and also contributed to record global temperatures in early July 2023.
The Antarctic Sea ice extent is almost as low as it was last year, leading to above-average temperatures over parts of the Southern Ocean.
As the global average temperature typically peaks between late June and early August, scientists expect it to rise and peak around July 22 or 23, 2024, before decreasing.
The European climate agency said whether 2024 will be the warmest year ever depends largely on the development and intensity of La Niña. While 2024 has been warm enough to surpass 2023, the exceptional warmth of the last four months of 2023 makes it too early to predict with certainty which year will be warmer.
Climate science non-profit Berkeley Earth estimated last week that 2024 has a 92 per cent chance of setting a new annual heat record.
There is a 99 per cent chance that 2024 will have an annual average temperature anomaly of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 average, it said.
At the 2015 UN climate talks in Paris, world leaders committed to limiting the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period average to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. However, a permanent breach of the 1.5-degree Celsius limit specified in the Paris Agreement refers to long-term warming over a 20 or 30-year period.
The quantity of greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide and methane, in the atmosphere is fast growing, causing an increase in Earth’s global surface temperature of about 1.2 degrees Celsius already. Global record droughts, wildfires, and floods are thought to be caused by this warming.
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