July is likely the hottest month so far

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July is likely to be the hottest month so far in thousands of years. This was reported by climate researchers from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the European climate change service Copernicus in Geneva on Thursday. They analyzed data through Jul. 23. “The world is in a hot seat,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

The new head of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Briton Jim Skea, said it was clear that the world would not meet the 1.5-degree maximum global warming target. He said that governments have not taken measures ambitious enough to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement. “That is absolutely certain,” he said.

“We don’t have to wait until the end of the month to know that for sure. If there is no mini ice age in the next few days, July will break all records,” Guterres said. What is already clear is that the three weeks in early July were the warmest three-week block ever recorded. 2023 could break 2016’s previous record as the hottest year on record, said Chris Hewitt, director of climate services at WMO.

According to the data, the hottest single day was Jul. 6, with a global average temperature of 17.08, followed closely by July 5 and 7. The previous record came from Aug. 13, 2016, with a reading of 16.8 degrees. That record has been surpassed on at least Jul. 17 days this year. “The era of global warming is over. The era of global boiling has begun,” Guterres said. He called on politicians to immediately adopt drastic steps to curb climate change.

While Copernicus refers to concrete measurement data from weather stations and satellites, among others, it only goes back to 1940, according to Carlos Buontempo, Copernicus director at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). But he said climate research, which reconstructs historical climate from indirect observations such as tree rings or air bubbles in glaciers, suggests that July temperatures have been unprecedented for thousands of years. Global warming from artificial climate change has been slowly progressing since the beginning of the last century. It has accelerated very sharply since the 1980s.

Although the weather in northern Europe this July felt less warm than in other summers, heat waves in North America, Asia and southern Europe were vital on a global average. Likewise, high ocean water temperatures contributed to the hot July, WMO reported.

In the first 23 days of July, the global average temperature was 16.95 degrees, according to the data. So far, July 2019 was the hottest at 16.63 degrees, according to European calculations. NOAA cites July 2021 as the hottest month. The difference could be explained by the fact that NOAA calculations did not include large parts of the polar regions, Copernicus reported.

The WMO is 98 percent certain that one of the next five years will be the hottest ever recorded. The previous record year, 2016, hit a global average temperature of about 1.3 degrees above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900). The WMO projects a 66 percent probability that in at least one of the next five years, the global average temperature will exceed 1.5 degrees. “This does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5 degree level set in the Paris Agreement,” the WMO stressed. “This refers to long-term warming over many years.”

July followed a June that was already hotter than any other June. “Man-made emissions are ultimately the main reason for rising temperatures,” Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo said. “Reducing greenhouse gases is more urgent than ever,” said WMO chief Petteri Taalas. “Climate action is not a luxury; it is a must.”