This year’s northern hemisphere summer saw the highest global temperatures on record, beating last year’s high and making this year likely Earth’s hottest ever recorded, the EU’s climate monitor said yesterday.
The data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service followed a season of heat waves around the world that scientists said were intensified by human-driven climate change.
Extreme weather struck around the globe — with about 1,300 dead during extreme heat at the hajj in Mecca, intense heat testing India’s economy and electricity system, and wildfires raging in parts of the western US.
Photo: EU / Copernicus Sentinel-2 via Reuters
“During the past three months of 2024, the globe has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day on record, and the hottest boreal summer on record,” Copernicus deputy director Samantha Burgess said in a report. “This string of record temperatures is increasing the likelihood of 2024 being the hottest year on record.”
The average global temperature at the Earth’s surface was 16.82°C last month, according to Copernicus, which draws on billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations.
That saw the global temperature break through the level of 1.5°C above the preindustrial average — a key threshold for limiting the worst effects of climate change.
Human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet, raising the likelihood and intensity of climate disasters such as droughts, fires and floods.
Heat was exacerbated last year and early this year by the cyclical weather phenomenon El Nino, although Copernicus scientist Julien Nicolas said its effects were not as strong as they sometimes are.
Meanwhile, the contrary cyclical cooling phenomenon, known as La Nina, has not yet started, he said.
A study published last month estimated that 30,000 to 65,000 people in Europe died from heat-related illnesses last year.
Against the global trend, regions such as Alaska, the eastern US, parts of South America, Pakistan and the Sahel desert zone in northern Africa had lower than average temperatures last month, the report said.
However, other regions such as Australia — where it was winter — Japan and Spain experienced record warmth.
China logged its hottest August in more than six decades last month, its national weather service said, after the nation endured a summer of extreme weather and heat waves across much of its north and west.
China is the leading emitter of greenhouse gases, but with Beijing installing renewable capacity at record speed, and a construction slump dragging down emissions-heavy steel production, there are signs the nation could hit its peak early, experts say.
“The temperature-related extreme events witnessed this summer will only become more intense, with more devastating consequences for people and the planet unless we take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Burgess said.
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