It’s official, July 2023 was the hottest month on Earth, according to a European climate monitoring organization.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), one of six services under the European’s Union’s space program, confirmed the news on Tuesday.
“All days throughout the rest of July were hotter than the previous record of 16.80°C, set on 13 August 2016, making the 29 days from 3-31 July the hottest 29 days on record. The hottest day was 6 July, when the global average temperature reached 17.08°C, and the values recorded on 5 and 7 July were within 0.01°C of this,” the agency said in a news release on Tuesday.
This comes amid a series of extreme weather events, such as the wildfires in Canada and the heatwaves across Europe, North America and Asia.
“The extreme weather which has affected many millions of people in July is unfortunately the harsh reality of climate change and a foretaste of the future…The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is more urgent than ever before. Climate action is not a luxury but a must,” World Meteorological Organization’s Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas said in a statement.
Last month, the C3S predicted that July would be the hottest month on record, going back to 1940. The monthly average temperature was 16.95 C and it was well above the previous record set in July 2019 which was 16. 63 C.
C3S Director Carlo Buontempo shares what could be behind the increasing temperatures.
“Record-breaking temperatures are part of the trend of drastic increases in global temperatures. Anthropogenic emissions are ultimately the main driver of these rising temperatures,” he said, adding that “July’s record is unlikely to remain isolated this year, C3S’ seasonal forecasts indicate that over land areas temperatures are likely to be well above average.”
C3S says a long period of unusually high sea surface temperatures (SSTs) also contributed to the severely warm July climate.
According to its data, the daily SST value reached a record high of 20.96 C,0.01C above the previous highest value ever recorded of 20.95 C in March 2016.
