US government scientists said the world experienced its hottest July on record, extending its monthly record for highest temperature to 15 consecutive months.
Global temperatures last month were about 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit (2.1 Celsius) above average, making it the hottest July on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said Thursday, meaning every month in the past 15 months beat the previous monthly record.
“This record began in June 2023 and has now surpassed the records set in 2015 and 2016,” said Karin Gleason, monitoring division chief for NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, adding that last month's record was a “photo finish” away from last July's.
Last month's record warmth led to the warmest July ever recorded in Europe and Africa and the second-warmest July ever in North America. About one-fifth of the world's land area set new temperature records in July, with only the tip of South America experiencing a cooler-than-average month.
A woman keeps her baby cool during the sweltering heat in a tent at the camp for internally displaced people in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, on July 11. Photo: Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images
Areas across the ocean have been hit by unusually hot weather over the past year, with last month being the second-warmest July on record, the 15th consecutive month that saw a record high.
Much of the world experienced a scorching hot July, with heatwaves hitting large parts of southern Europe and the United States. Last month, unusually, global daily average temperature records were broken two days in a row.
NOAA's ranking differs slightly from that of Copernicus, an EU Earth observation service that announced last week that July was the second-hottest month on record.
NOAA said Thursday that there is a 77% chance that 2024 will be the hottest year on record, beating last year's record. It added that there is also a two-thirds chance of a La Niña weather event developing after September. La Niña is a cyclical natural phenomenon that often results in colder temperatures than the El Niño weather event that has contributed to the recent rise in temperatures.
People cool off in the Elenik River during a heatwave near Gjakova, Kosovo, on July 16. Photo: Valdrin Xhemaj/Reuters
“What's really surprising is how big the difference is between the temperatures of the past 13 months and previous temperature records,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, following the daily temperature record recorded on July 21. “We are now entering completely uncharted territory and new records will likely be broken in the coming months and years as the climate continues to warm.”
Climate scientists stress that the rise in temperatures is a clear sign of the effects of the climate crisis caused by the burning of fossil fuels and a sign of insufficient efforts to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
“With temperatures rising so much, we need to do everything we can to reduce the emissions that are accelerating climate change,” said Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at Duke University.
“That means accelerating the phase-out of fossil fuels, reducing methane over this decade and tackling agricultural emissions. These aren't easy things to do, but the impacts of not doing them are growing rapidly and dooming us to a temperature rise well above 1.5°C. Every day we delay gets warmer.”
