Madrid, Spain, was hit by a extreme heatwave in July
Miguel Pereira/Getty Photographs
Earth has simply skilled its hottest three-month interval on document by a major margin. The worldwide common temperature for June, July and August was 16.77°C (62.19°F), a whopping 0.66°C above common, based on the European Union’s Copernicus Local weather Change Service. That temperature beat the earlier document set in 2019 by virtually three-tenths of a level.
“Local weather breakdown has begun,” stated António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, in an announcement. “Our local weather is imploding quicker than we will address excessive climate occasions hitting each nook of the planet. Surging temperatures demand a surge in motion.”
Final month was the most popular August in data going again to 1940 and the second hottest month ever after this July, when the common world temperature was 16.95°C (62.51°F). Ocean temperatures have been even hotter, averaging 20.98°C (69.76°F) in August – the brand new hottest month on document.
Each July and August had been estimated to be 1.5°C above the pre-industrial common, briefly reaching the restrict on yearly common warming established by the Paris Settlement.
The common for the 12 months up to now is barely 0.01°C behind 2016, which holds the document for the most popular 12 months, with El Niño, a periodic buildup of heat water within the jap Pacific, anticipated to maintain boosting world temperatures.
This summer season within the northern hemisphere has seen heatwaves gasoline the EU’s largest ever wildfire in Greece and temperatures of as much as 47°C (117°F), leading to 1000’s of estimated deaths. Warmth data have additionally been set within the US, the place greater than 60 million persons are presently below warmth alerts. It has been even hotter in Asia, the place China noticed its highest temperature ever recorded at 52.2°C (126°F).
Within the southern hemisphere, the place winter is simply ending, Antarctic sea ice is 12 per cent under its common extent, a document low for this time of 12 months.
“2023 is more likely to be the warmest 12 months individuals have ever skilled,” says Samantha Burgess on the Copernicus Local weather Change Service. “A hotter world means extra impacts from extra intense and frequent excessive occasions such because the heatwaves, wildfires and flooding seen this summer season. The UK is uncovered to the elevated local weather threat from a hotter world, and the summer season we’ve simply skilled is more likely to be one of many coolest summers over the subsequent decade.”
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