July is likely to be the hottest month in thousands of years. This was reported by climate scientists from the World Weather Organization (WMO) and the European climate change service Copernicus in Geneva. They evaluated data up to July 23.
“The world is in a hot seat,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “We don’t have to wait until the end of the month to know for sure. If there isn’t a mini ice age in the next few days, July will break all records.” One thing is clear: the three weeks at the beginning of July were the warmest three-week block ever measured. 2023 could break the previous record of 2016 as the hottest year, said Chris Hewitt, director of climate services at the WMO.
The world’s hottest single day ever recorded was July 6 of this year, with a global average temperature of 17.08 degrees, closely followed by July 5 and 7. The previous record was on August 13, 2016 with a reading of 16.8 degrees. This record was broken on at least 17 days in July this year. “The era of global warming is over. The era of global cooking is here,” Guterres said. He called on politicians to immediately take drastic steps to curb climate change.
Unparalleled for thousands of years
Copernicus refers to concrete measurement data, including from weather stations and satellites, which only go back to 1940, as Carlos Buontempo, Copernicus Director at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), said. However, climate research, which reconstructs historical climate from indirect observations such as tree rings or air bubbles in glaciers, suggests that July temperatures are unprecedented in thousands of years. Global warming due to man-made climate change has been progressing slowly since the beginning of the last century. It has accelerated very rapidly since the 1980s.
Although the weather in Germany and northern Europe in July felt less warm than in other summers, heat waves in North America, Asia and southern Europe were the decisive factor on a global average. The high water temperature of the oceans also contributed to the particularly warm July, the WMO reported.
According to this information, the global average temperature for the first 23 days of July was 16.95 degrees. So far, according to European calculations, July 2019 as a whole has been the hottest at 16.63 degrees. NOAA lists July 2021 as the hottest month. The difference can be explained by the fact that the NOAA calculations do not include large parts of the polar regions, Copernicus said. Further analyses, for example from the US agency NOAA, are expected in mid-August.
Absolute top value
A current analysis by the German climate scientist Karsten Haustein comes to the conclusion that it is “practically certain” that July will be the hottest month since the beginning of industrialization: According to current calculations, the average temperature in July 2023 was around 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900). “It surpasses everything we have seen so far,” said the scientist from the Institute for Meteorology at the University of Leipzig on Thursday when the results were presented.
Of course, July is not quite over yet, said Haustein. Nevertheless, taking into account the weather forecast for the coming days, one can already say that a record level will be reached. The climate scientist is convinced: “Even if the next few days get cooler, we’re still in record territory.” For his calculations, Haustein used data from worldwide weather stations, radiosondes and satellite remote sensing as well as the American weather forecast model Global Forecast System (GFS), the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project and NASA.
Climate expert Friederike Otto from Imperial College in London said when presenting the results that the global average temperature alone does not kill anyone – but extreme weather events such as the current heat wave in the Mediterranean region do. These were clearly related to the “hottest July ever”. The consequence: “Every year, thousands of people die in Europe alone as a result of extreme heat.” Despite all possible efforts, the earth is no longer getting any cooler, said Otto. Therefore, people would have to adapt and be allowed to live with extreme conditions in summer.
WMO: 1.5 degree value will soon be exceeded
The WMO has a 98 percent certainty that one of the next five years will be the hottest. The previous record year, 2016, had a global average temperature of around 1.3 degrees above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900). The WMO estimates that there is a 66 percent probability that the global average temperature will exceed 1.5 degrees in at least one of the next five years. “This does not mean that we will permanently exceed the level of 1.5 degrees set in the Paris Agreement,” emphasized the WMO. “This refers to long-term warming over many years.”
July followed a June that was already hotter than any other. “Man-made emissions are ultimately the main reason for rising temperatures,” said Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo. “Reducing greenhouse gases is more urgent than ever,” said WMO chief Petteri Taalas. “Climate action is not a luxury, it is a must.”
