Climate crisis: Beginning of July hottest week on record, says WMO
HT had reported on July 6 that last July 3 marked a grim milestone for Earth — it was, on average, the hottest day ever recorded
New Delhi: The beginning of July was the hottest week on record, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Monday.
It follows the hottest June on record, with unprecedented sea surface temperatures and record low Antarctic sea ice extent, it added. WMO’s statement comes at a time when Himachal Pradesh, parts of northern Punjab, Haryana and Delhi in India recorded unprecedented rainfall.Himachal Pradesh saw landslides, mudslides, massive damage to bridges, highways and other infrastructure.
“The exceptional warmth in June and at the start of July occurred at the onset of the development of El Nino, which is expected to further fuel the heat both on land and in the oceans and lead to more extreme temperatures and marine heatwaves. We are in uncharted territory and we can expect more records to fall as El Nino develops further and these impacts will extend into 2024. This is worrying news for the planet,” said Prof. Christopher Hewitt, WMO Director of Climate Services in a statement.
According to provisional analysis based on reanalysis data from Japan named JRA-3Q, the average global temperature on July 7 was 17.24°C. This is 0.3°C above the previous record of 16.94°C on August 16 2016 — also a strong El Nino year.
The Japanese reanalysis data was made available to WMO and is not yet confirmed. But it is consistent with preliminary data from the European Union’s Copernicus programme, WMO said.
HT had reported on July 6 that last July 3 marked a grim milestone for Earth — it was, on average, the hottest day ever recorded. However, the record lasted only for a day as it was broken again on July 4 and then again on July 5, underscoring the incredible pace at which the human-induced climate crisis is spreading over the planet. Thereafter, July 6 and July had also clocked record temperatures.
WMO uses a combination of reanalysis datasets with global observations from land surface stations and ships for its State of the Climate reports and to assess global temperatures. “According to various datasets from our partners in different parts of the world, the first week of July set a new record in terms of daily temperatures,” said Omar Baddour, chief of climate monitoring at WMO. “The WMO and wider scientific community are closely watching these dramatic changes in different components of the climate system, and sea surface temperatures,” Baddour said.
A report from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service showed that June 2023 was just over 0.5°C above the 1991-2020 average, smashing the previous record of June 2019. Record June temperatures were experienced across northwest Europe, according to Copernicus. Parts of Canada, the United States, Mexico, Asia, and eastern Australia were significantly warmer than normal. It was cooler than normal in a few places including over western Australia, the western US, and western Russia.
“Global sea surface temperatures were at record high for the time of the year both in May and June. This comes with a cost. It will impact fisheries distribution and the ocean circulation in general, with knock-on effects on the climate. It is not only the surface temperature, but the whole ocean is becoming warmer and absorbing energy that will remain there for hundreds of years. Alarm bells are ringing especially loudly because of the unprecedented sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic,” WMO said.
According to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a tool that uses satellite data and computer simulations to measure the weather conditions, on July 3, global air temperature was 17.1°C; July 4 — 17.18°C; July 5 — 17.18°C; July 6 — 17.23°C and July 7 — 17.20°C.
Several climate scientists are in agreement that global warming and the onset of El Nino conditions are now interacting, which is why the world should prepare for more records. The triple dip La Nina which began in 2020 and ended in early 2023 had moderated the impact of global warming to an extent which has now waned. La Nina has a cooling influence even though record-breaking heat spells were recorded globally including in India during the recent La Nina period.
La Nina appears when easterly trade winds intensify the upwelling of cooler water from the depths of the eastern tropical Pacific, causing a large-scale cooling of the eastern and central Pacific Ocean surface near the Equator according to US’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Whereas, El Nino is characterised by an unusual warming of waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific, which has a high correlation with warmer summers globally and weaker monsoon rains in India. WMO has forecast that there is a 90% probability of the El Nino event continuing during the second half of 2023. It is expected to be at least of moderate strength.
“The recent La Nina conditions in the Pacific — until the start of this year — were dampening the global temperatures to a large extent. Now it has come to an end and an El Nino is in place. El Nino exposes the deeper ocean heat to the atmosphere. Oceans absorb more than 93% of the additional heat from global warming. This climate change signal is now coming out loud and clear with El Nino. The high temperatures that we are already seeing is a warning that we will temporarily cross 1.5°C in global temperature change this year and forever by 2040,” Roxy Mathew Koll, climate scientist at Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology had said last week.
