The Copernicus Climate Change Service has confirmed this Tuesday that July has been the hottest month in history. The latest data from the European Union’s Earth Observation Program show that last month was 0.72 degrees warmer than the July average for the period 1991-2020 and 0.33 degrees above the previous warmest month, July. of 2019.
In the past month, heat waves have been recorded in multiple regions of the northern hemisphere, including southern Europe, and there have been well-above-average temperatures in several South American countries and around much of Antarctica, according to the Copernicus bulletin.
In addition, July has been 1.5 degrees warmer than the average from 1850 to 1900, a figure loaded with symbolism, since that is the most optimistic target set in the 2015 Paris Agreements for the entire 21st century, although the limit more realistic is in lso two degrees. The data for the coming months and years will make it possible to determine if the world has definitively overcome that barrier or if the increase has only been temporary.
But the heat is not only punishing the land. Global average sea surface temperatures have continued to rise, following a long period of unusually high temperatures since April 2023, reaching record levels in July.
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In this way, for the month as a whole, the global average temperature of the sea surface was 0.51 degrees above the average for 1991-2020 and the temperature of the North Atlantic in July was 1.05 degrees above average. European experts highlight that “temperatures in the northeastern part” of the basin “maintained above average”, “unusually high temperatures were recorded in the northwestern Atlantic” and “marine heat waves developed south of Greenland and in the Labrador Sea, in the Caribbean basin and in the Mediterranean Sea” while “signals typical of the El Niño phenomenon continued to be recorded in the eastern equatorial Pacific”.
From January to July, the world average for 2023 is the third highest on record, 0.43 degrees above the average for the period 1991-2020, compared to 0.49 degrees in 2016 and 0.48 degrees in 2020, but « the difference between 2023 and 2016 is expected to narrow in the coming months, as the last few months of 2016 were relatively cool (reducing the annual average to 0.44°C), while the rest are expected to 2023 will be relatively warm due to the current climatic phenomenon as the current El Niño phenomenon develops”, the experts estimate.
“We have just witnessed global air and ocean surface temperatures setting new all-time records in July. These records have dire consequences for both people and the planet, which are exposed to increasingly frequent and intense extreme events,” Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of Copernicus, explains in a statement.
“Currently, the year 2023 is the third warmest year to date, at 0.43 degrees above the recent average, and the global average temperature in July was 1.5 degrees above pre-Revolution levels. Industrial. Although temporary, it demonstrates the urgency of ambitious efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, which are primarily responsible for these records,” Burgess claims.
