2023-08-08 10:17:48
Now that the skyrocketing data for July is out, the European climate monitoring organization has made it official: July 2023 was the hottest month ever documented on Earth by a wide margin.
The global average temperature of 16.95 degrees Celsius (62.51 degrees Fahrenheit) for the month of July was one-third of a degree Celsius (six-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit) higher than the previous record, set in 2019, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a division of the European Union space program. Normally, global temperature records are broken by hundredths or a tenth of a degree, so the difference is unusual.
“These records have grim consequences for both people and the planet exposed to ever more frequent and intense extreme events,” said Copernicus Deputy Director Samantha Burgess. There have been deadly heat waves in the southwestern United States and Mexico, Europe and Asia Immediate scientific studies attributed the phenomenon to climate change caused by humanity with the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.
Warm
The days in July have been warmer than those recorded in the past since July 2. The increase has been so strong that Copernicus and the World Meteorological Organization made an unusually early announcement that it would likely be the hottest month days before it ended. Tuesday’s calculations made that statement official.
The month was 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than in the pre-industrial era. In 2015, the countries of the world agreed to try to avoid long-term warming – measured not in months or even years, but in decades – of 1.5 degrees more than the pre-industrial era.
Last month it was so hot that it was 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.3 Fahrenheit) warmer than the July average between 1991 and 2020, according to Copernicus. The world’s oceans were half a degree Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than in the previous 30 years, and the North Atlantic was 1.05 degrees Celsius (1.9 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than average. Antarctica recorded record low sea ice, 15% below average for this time of year.
Copernicus records go back to 1940. That temperature would be higher than in any month documented by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and its records go back to 1850. But scientists say it was actually the hottest in much longer.
“It’s an impressive record and makes it quite clearly the warmest month on Earth in 10,000 years,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Postdam Institute for Climate Research in Germany. The expert was not part of the Copernicus team.
Rahmstorf cited studies using tree growth rings and other means to determine that the current time is the warmest since the Holocene period began, regarding 10,000 years ago. There was an ice age before the Holocene began, so it would be logical to even say that it was the highest temperature record in 120,000 years, he added.
“We shouldn’t worry regarding July because it’s a record, but because it won’t be a record for a long time,” said Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto. “It’s an indicator of how much we’ve changed the climate. We live in a very different world. , one that our societies are not very well adapted to live with.”
Seth Borenstein is on Twitter as @borenbears
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