July 2023 sets record for hottest month in 120,000 years

People cool off by a fountain in Washington, DC, USA, July 11, 2023

In a report on July 27, the European Union (EU) Copernicus Climate Change Service and the World Meteorological Organization (WMP) said the world had just experienced the three hottest weeks ever recorded.

The report said the average temperature for the first 23 days of July was 16.95 degrees Celsius, much higher than the previous record of 16.63 degrees Celsius set in July 2019.

Comparing this with climate data we know from millennia ago based on tree rings, coral reefs and deep-sea sediment cores, scientists show that this is the hottest average temperature the planet has experienced in 120,000 years.

“This is the hottest temperature in human history,” said Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of Copernicus.

The El Nino phenomenon has created a hot summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and potentially an unprecedented hot summer.

The impact of heat on human endurance is clear. As temperatures rise to 122 degrees Fahrenheit across the United States, heat-related deaths are on the rise. Even people who fall to the ground are at risk of life-threatening burns.

In the Mediterranean, more than 40 people have died as wildfires raged across the region due to soaring temperatures. In Asia, prolonged heat waves are killing people and threatening food security.

Burgess said human-caused climate change was the main cause of the unusual heat. “Global air temperatures are directly proportional to the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” she explained.

A recent study found that climate change played a “completely dominant” role in heatwaves in the US, China and southern Europe this summer.

The emergence of El Niño, a natural climate change with a warming effect, is likely to push temperatures even higher, Burgess said.

The news that July was the hottest month in about 100,000 years comes amid a series of alarming records being broken this summer.

Last month was the hottest June on record by a “considerable margin,” according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

The world also experienced its hottest day on record in July. On July 6, the global average temperature rose to 17.08 degrees Celsius, beating the previous record of 16.8 degrees Celsius set in August 2016. Every day since July 3 has been hotter than the 2016 record.

“We have five months left in 2023 and almost every month this year is in the top five hottest months on record,” Burgess said, adding that if this trend continues into the fall and winter, 2023 could be one of the hottest years on record.

Ocean temperatures are also at record levels. In mid-May, global ocean surface temperatures reached an all-time high for the year.

Kim Cobb, a climate scientist at Brown University (USA), called the new temperature record in July astonishing, but warned that it would be broken again.

“It’s scary to think that in a decade, this could be a relatively cool year. If people don’t adapt to what’s happening this summer, they’re going to be quite shocked by even higher temperatures in the future,” she said.

Petteri Taalas, WMO Secretary-General, said July’s weather reflected the harsh realities of climate change. “The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is more urgent than ever. Climate action is not a luxury, it is an imperative,” Petteri said.

According to Tin Tuc Newspaper