On July 3, world registers hottest day ever recorded
The new high was about 0.8°C hotter than the average for the time of the year between 1979-2000, the data showed
The world on Monday crossed another grim milestone with the average global temperature reaching 17.01°C, data from the US government’s National Centers for Environmental prediction showed, surpassing the previous maximum of 16.92°C recorded in August 2016.
“This is not a milestone we should be celebrating, it’s a death sentence for people and ecosystems. And worryingly, it won’t be the hottest day for a long time,” Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in Climate Science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, said in an emailed statement.
The new high was about 0.8°C hotter than the average for the time of the year between 1979-2000, the data showed.
Experts attributed the rise in temperature to the climate crisis, caused by burning of fossil fuels and other human activities, combined with the El Nino weather pattern.
“With El Niño developing, the world will likely break this record again in the coming months. We absolutely need to stop burning fossil fuels,” Otto said.
Zeke Hausfather, climate research lead at Stripe and research scientist at Berkeley Earth, said in an emailed statement that after the highs of June, July was on track to be the warmest on record.
“June was the warmest June ever recorded by a large margin, and July is on track to be the warmest July on record as well. Based on the first six months of the year, it looks increasingly likely that 2023 will end up as the overall warmest year on record,” he said.
In an update on May 17, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said there was a 66% likelihood of exceeding the 1.5°C threshold in at least one year between 2023 and 2027, with an El Nino turbocharging the warming being caused due to GHGs.
The update came soon after an analysis by scientists from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) showed that 2022 was the sixth-warmest year on record since 1880.
“Loss and damage from human induced climate change has arrived throughout the world with the hottest day ever. Expect many more hottest days in future,” Saleemul Haq, director, International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), Independent University, Bangladesh, said in an emailed statement.
