The United Nations has said that it is now “virtually certain” that July will be the hottest month the world has ever recorded.
“For vast parts of North America, Asia, Africa and Europe – it is a cruel summer,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday.
“For the entire planet, it is a disaster. And for scientists, it is unequivocal – humans are to blame.”
This previous hottest month on record was July 2019.
The northern hemisphere’s scorching summer is leading to fears that a global aim to keep temperature rises to no more than 1.5C above pre industrial levels won’t be met.
On July 6, the daily average global mean surface air temperature broke a record set in August 2016 to be the hottest single day on record.
However, while the trend globally is towards heat, parts of Antarctica are recording some of its lowest temperatures, dipping to -80C.
‘Global boiling’
The UN’s Mr Guterres said the time of climate change was over and “the era of global boiling has arrived”.
“We don’t have to wait for the end of the month to know (July will be the hottest ever month). Short of a mini-Ice Age over the next days, July 2023 will shatter records across the board,” he said.
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), a UN agency, and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service stated the first three weeks of July were the hottest such period on record.
On the first and third week of the month, global mean temperatures exceeded the 15. C benchmark.
2023 has already seen the hottest June on record.
Solid data goes back only as far as 1940 but talking to CNN, deputy director at Copernicus Samantha Burgess said measurements and indications using tree rings, coral reefs and deep sea sediment cores goes back far longer, 100,000 years or more.
“These are the hottest temperatures in human history,” she said.
‘Virtually certain’ July will be hottest month
According to the data from the EU’s Copernicus project, the global mean surface air temperature average for the first 23 days of July 2023 was 16.9C.
This is above the 16.63C recorded in July 2019, the previous warmest month on record.
“At this stage, it is virtually certain that the full monthly average temperature for July 2023 will exceed that of July 2019 by a significant margin, making July 2023 the warmest July and warmest month on record,” the WMO and EU said.
The northern summer’s oppressive heat has led to at last 40 deaths across the Mediterranean region, in countries such as Greece.
Parts of the US have seen temperatures exceed 50C.
Climate watchers are warning that despite El Nino now being declared by US meteorologists it’s not up to full speed yet. This could mean 2024’s temperatures are even hotter than this year.
Antarctica records coldest temperature
However, while the northern hemisphere suffers under the summer heat, Antarctica in the south is shivering.
Metrological equipment at the joint French-Italian Concordia research station, located within Australia’s Antarctic Territory, recorded a temperature of -83.2C on July 25, reported website Weatherzone.
It would be the lowest temperatures anywhere in the word so far this year or since 2017.
But it still wouldn’t be the world’s coldest ever temperature. That was a low of -89.6C, recorded at the then Soviet Union’s Vostok Antarctic station in 1983.