PARIS: Monday was the world’s hottest day on record, exceeding an average of 17 degrees Celsius (62.6 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time, according to initial measurements taken on Tuesday by US meteorologists.
The average daily air temperature on the planet’s surface on July 3 was logged at 17.01C by an organisation attached to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
This measurement surpasses the previous daily record (16.92C) set on July 24 last year, according to data from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction going back to 1979.
“This is not a milestone we should be celebrating,” said climate scientist Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Britain’s Imperial College London.
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The world’s average air temperature, which fluctuates between around 12C and just under 17C on any given day over the year, averaged 16.2C at the beginning of July between 1979 and 2000.
The record has yet to be corroborated by other measurements, but could soon be broken as the northern hemisphere’s summer begins.
The average global temperature typically continues to rise until the end of July or beginning of August.
Scientists said climate change, combined with an emerging El Nino pattern, were to blame.
“Unfortunately, it promises to only be the first in a series of new records set this year as increasing emissions of [carbon dioxide] and greenhouse gases coupled with a growing El Nino event push temperatures to new highs,” said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, in a statement.
Even last month, average global temperatures were the warmest the European Union’s Copernicus climate monitoring unit had ever recorded for the start of June.
Temperatures are likely to rise even further above historical averages over the next year with the onset of an El Nino weather phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean, which the World Meteorological Organization confirmed on Monday is now underway.
In addition, human activity—mainly the burning of fossil fuels—is continuing to emit roughly 40 billion tonnes of planet-warming CO2 into the atmosphere every year. The United Nations warned the world to prepare for the effects of El Nino, saying the weather phenomenon which triggers higher global temperatures is set to persist throughout 2023.
El Nino is a naturally occurring climate pattern typically associated with increased heat worldwide, as well as drought in some parts of the world and heavy rains elsewhere.
The phenomenon occurs on average every two to seven years, and episodes typically last nine to 12 months.
The UN’s World Meteorological Organization declared El Nino was already under way and said there was a 90-percent chance that it would continue during the second half of 2023.
“The onset of El Nino will greatly increase the likelihood of breaking temperature records and triggering more extreme heat in many parts of the world and in the ocean,” warned WMO secretary-general Petteri Taalas.
“The declaration of an El Nino by WMO is the signal to governments around the world to mobilise preparations to limit the impacts on our health, our ecosystems and our economies,” said Taalas.
“Early warnings and anticipatory action of extreme weather events associated with this major climate phenomenon are vital to save lives and livelihoods.”
El Nino is the large-scale warming of surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.
Conditions oscillate between El Nino and its generally cooling opposite La Nina, with neutral conditions in between.
The WMO says the last El Nino was in 2015-2016.
From 2020 to early 2023, the world was affected by an unusually protracted La Nina, which dragged on for three consecutive years.
It was the first so-called triple-dip La Nina of the 21st century and only the third since 1950.
La Nina’s cooling effect put a temporary brake on rising global temperatures, even though the past eight-year period was the warmest on record.
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