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July 2023 goes down in history as the hottest month ever recorded
The average global temperature this month stands at 16.95°C with hotter days on the way
It’s not quite over yet, but this July is on the fast track to becoming the warmest month ever recorded on the planet. Although modern records go back to the 20th century or, at the very most, the 19th, expert climatologists believe that these extraordinary temperatures haven’t been reached on Earth for much longer than that.
“It will not only be the warmest July, but the warmest month on record in terms of global mean absolute temperature. We may have to go back thousands, if not tens of thousands of years, to find similar warm conditions on our planet”, says Karsten Haustein, a climatologist at the University of Leipzig (Germany).
His Berkeley Earth colleague, researcher Zeke Hausfather, concurs: "Our past COâ‚‚ emissions have accumulated in the atmosphere, and even without any additional warming, this century will be warmer than any similar period in the last 120,000 years."
And it’s a trend of extremes that we’ve been following all year: last month was the wettest June in history and we haven’t seen a balmier April in some 60 years.
The average global temperature so far this month is 16.95°C but before the summer of 2023, the month on record as the hottest on the planet was July 2019, when the mercury hit 16.63°C.
The heatwaves plaguing much of Europe, North America and Asia are undoubtedly the reason for July’s new record, but there is a deadly side to this dramatic temperature increase: wildfires. Dozens of people have lost their lives across the globe in recent weeks as flames rage out of control in Spain, Italy, Greece and several other countries. A rise in humidity and low winds allowed Gran Canaria firefighters to bring the blaze under control, but other nations haven’t been so lucky.
For Petteri Taalas, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization, "the extreme weather that has affected many millions of people in July is unfortunately the harsh reality of climate change and a foretaste of the future." “The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is more urgent than ever. Climate action is not a luxury, but a duty”, he stressed.
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Image: World Meteorological Organisation
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