New Delhi:

The Earth experienced its hottest day in at least 84 years, with the global average temperature reaching a record high of 17.09 degrees Celsius on July 21, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

This follows a series of record-breaking temperatures — June marked the 12th consecutive month of global temperatures reaching or exceeding the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold. Every month since June last year has been the warmest on record.

Preliminary data from C3S showed that July 21 was the hottest day since at least 1940, surpassing the previous record of 17.08 degrees Celsius set on July 6, 2023.

What stands out is the significant difference between the temperatures since July 2023 and all previous years.

Before July 2023, the Earth’s daily average temperature record, set in August 2016, was 16.8 degrees Celsius. However, since July 3, 2023, there have been 57 days with temperatures exceeding that previous record.

Carlo Buontempo, director of C3S, said the difference between the temperatures over the past 13 months and previous records is staggering.

“We are now in truly uncharted territory and as the climate continues to warm, we are bound to see new records in the coming months and years,” he said.

Analysis shows that 2023 and 2024 have seen significantly higher annual maximum daily global temperatures compared to previous years. The 10 years with the highest daily average temperatures are from 2015 to 2024.

The global average temperature usually peaks between late June and early August, driven by the northern hemisphere’s summer. The land masses in the northern hemisphere warm up faster than the southern hemisphere’s oceans can cool down.

With global average temperatures already at near-record levels, a new daily average temperature record was not completely unexpected.

C3S scientists attributed the sudden rise in daily global temperatures to much higher-than-average temperatures over large parts of Antarctica. Such large anomalies are not uncommon during the Antarctic winter and also contributed to record global temperatures in early July 2023.

The Antarctic Sea ice extent is almost as low as it was last year, leading to above-average temperatures over parts of the Southern Ocean.

As the global average temperature typically peaks between late June and early August, scientists expect it to rise and peak around July 22 or 23, 2024, before decreasing.

The European climate agency said whether 2024 will be the warmest year ever depends largely on the development and intensity of La Niña. While 2024 has been warm enough to surpass 2023, the exceptional warmth of the last four months of 2023 makes it too early to predict with certainty which year will be warmer.

Climate science non-profit Berkeley Earth estimated last week that 2024 has a 92 per cent chance of setting a new annual heat record.

There is a 99 per cent chance that 2024 will have an annual average temperature anomaly of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 average, it said.

At the 2015 UN climate talks in Paris, world leaders committed to limiting the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period average to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. However, a permanent breach of the 1.5-degree Celsius limit specified in the Paris Agreement refers to long-term warming over a 20 or 30-year period.

The Earth’s global surface temperature has already increased by around 1.2 degrees Celsius due to the rapidly-increasing concentration of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide and methane, in the atmosphere. This warming is considered to be the reason behind record droughts, wildfires and floods worldwide. PTI GVS RC

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According to a recent research, the summer months in 2023 were on average 2.2 C (4 F) warmer than the estimated average temperature across the years 1 to 1890.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

The intense northern hemisphere summer heat that drove wildfires across the Mediterranean, buckled roads in Texas and strained power grids in China last year made it not just the warmest summer on record – but the warmest in some 2,000 years, new research suggests.

The stark finding comes from one of two new studies released on Tuesday, as both global temperatures and climate-warming emissions continue to climb.

Scientists had quickly declared last year’s June to August period as the warmest since record-keeping began in the 1940s.

New work published in the journal Nature suggests the 2023 heat eclipsed temperatures over a far longer timeline – a finding established by looking at meteorological records dating to the mid-1800s and temperature data based on the analysis of tree rings across nine northern sites.

“When you look at the long sweep of history, you can see just how dramatic recent global warming is,” said study co-author Jan Esper, a climate scientist at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany.

Last year’s summer season temperatures on lands between 30 and 90 degrees north latitude reached 2.07 degrees Celsius (3.73 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than pre-industrial averages, the study said.

Based on tree ring data, the summer months in 2023 were on average 2.2 C (4 F) warmer than the estimated average temperature across the years 1 to 1890.

The finding was not entirely a surprise. By January, scientists with the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service were saying the year of 2023 was “very likely” to have been the warmest in some 100,000 years.

However, proving such a long record is unlikely, Esper said. He and two other European scientists argued in a paper last year that year-by-year comparisons could not be established over such a vast time scale with current scientific methods, including gleaning temperature data from sources such as marine sediments or peat bogs.

“We don’t have such data,” Esper said. “That was an overstatement.”

Last year’s intense summer heat was amplified by the El Nino climate pattern, which typically coincides with warmer global temperatures, leading to “longer and more severe heatwaves, and extended periods of drought,” Esper said.

Heatwaves are already taking a toll on people’s health, with more than 150,000 deaths in 43 countries linked to heatwaves for each year between 1990 and 2019, according to the details of a second study published on Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine.

That would account for about 1% of global deaths – roughly the same toll taken by the global COVID-19 pandemic.

More than half of those heatwave-related excess deaths occurred in populous Asia.

When the data are adjusted for population size, Europe had the highest per capita toll with an average of 655 heat-related deaths each year per 10 million residents. Within the region, Greece, Malta, and Italy registered the highest excess deaths.

Extreme heat can trigger heart problems and breathing difficulty or cause heat stroke.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service said that every month since June last year has been the warmest such month on record.
| Photo Credit: AP

The world, last month, experienced the warmest February on record, with the average temperature being 1.77 degrees Celsius more than the February average for 1850-1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period, the European Union’s climate agency said on March 7.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) also said that every month since June last year has been the warmest such month on record.

Scientists attribute the exceptional warming to the combined effects of El Nino — a period of abnormal warming of surface waters in the central Pacific Ocean — and human-caused climate change.

C3S last month said the global mean temperature breached the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold for an entire year for the first time in January. A permanent breach of the 1.5-degree Celsius limit specified in the Paris Agreement, however, refers to long-term warming over many years.

Explained | How El Nino could impact the world’s weather in 2023-24

According to climate scientists, countries need to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Earth’s global surface temperature has already increased by around 1.1 degrees Celsius compared with the average in 1850-1900 — a level that has not been witnessed since 1,25,000 years, before the most recent ice age.

This warming is considered the reason behind record droughts, wildfires and floods worldwide. With an average temperature of 13.54 degrees Celsius, February 2024 was 0.12 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous warmest February in 2016, the EU’s climate agency said.

“The month was 1.77 degrees Celsius warmer than an estimate of the February average for 1850-1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period,” C3S said in an update.

The global average temperature for the last 12 months (March 2023–February 2024) is the highest on record, at 0.68 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average and 1.56 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.

“The daily global average temperature was exceptionally high during the first half of the month, reaching two degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 levels on four consecutive days (February 8–11),” C3S scientists said.

The average global sea surface temperature (SST) for February 2024 was 21.06 degrees Celsius, the highest for any month in the dataset. The previous high was in August 2023 (20.98 degrees Celsius).

C3S director Carlo Buontempo said, “February joins the long streak of records of the last few months. As remarkable as this might appear, it is not really surprising as the continuous warming of the climate system inevitably leads to new temperature extremes.

“The climate responds to the actual concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere so, unless we manage to stabilise those, we will inevitably face new global temperature records and their consequences,” Mr. Buontempo said.

The World Meteorological Organization on Tuesday said the 2023-24 El Nino has peaked as one of the five strongest on record and will continue to impact global climate in the coming months despite a weakening trend.

The United Nations agency also said above-normal temperatures are predicted over almost all land areas between March and May. The WMO said there is about a 60% chance of El Nino persisting during March-May and an 80% likelihood of neutral conditions (neither El Nino nor La Nina) from April to June.

There is a chance of La Nina developing later in the year, but those odds are currently uncertain, it said. Scientists closely tracking the development in India have said La Nina conditions setting in by June-August could mean monsoon rains would be better this year than in 2023.

El Nino — a periodic warming of the ocean surface in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean — occurs every two to seven years on average and typically lasts nine to 12 months.

It is associated with increased rainfall in the Horn of Africa and the southern U.S., and unusually dry and warm conditions in Southeast Asia, Australia and southern Africa.

Scientists attribute the exceptional warming to the combined effects of El Niño. File photo
| Photo Credit: AP

The world last month experienced the warmest January on record, with the global mean temperature for the past 12 months exceeding the 1.5° Celsius threshold, according to the European climate agency.

However, this does not imply a permanent breach of the 1.5-degree Celsius limit specified in the Paris agreement, as it refers to long-term warming over many years.

Every month since June last year has been the warmest such month on record.

Scientists attribute the exceptional warming to the combined effects of El Niño — a period of abnormal warming of surface waters in the central Pacific Ocean — and human-caused climate change.

Also read: How climate change is making the world sick

The global average temperature in January was 1.66° Celsius above the January average for 1850-1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period.

With an average temperature of 13.14° Celsius, January 2024 was 0.12° Celsius warmer than the previous warmest January in 2020, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said.

Scientists at C3S said the global mean temperature for the past 12 months (February 2023-January 2024) was the highest on record and 1.52° Celsius above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.

Paris agreement

In 2015, countries agreed in Paris to limit the average temperature rise to well below 2° Celsius, and preferably to 1.5° Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels (1850-1900), to avoid worsening climate impacts.

Multiple reports suggest that the world is significantly off track to limit global warming to 1.5° Celsius. To achieve this goal, countries together need to cut down the emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane by 43% by 2030.

Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of C3S, said that “2024 starts with another record-breaking month — not only is it the warmest January on record but we have also just experienced a 12-month period of more than 1.5° Celsius above the pre-industrial reference period”.

“Rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are the only way to stop global temperatures from increasing.” The year 2023 was the warmest on record, with the average global temperature rise compared to pre-industrial levels nearing the 1.5° Celsius threshold.

The World Meteorological Organisation in December said 2024 could be worse as “El Nino typically has the greatest impact on global temperature after it peaks.”