According to preliminary data from US scientists, July 4th was the hottest day on record worldwide. The average global temperature on Tuesday was 17.18 degrees, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer platform. The day before, a value of 17.01 had been given – that was also a high. The previous daily record of the “Climate Reanalyzer” data going back to 1979 was 16.92 on August 13 and 14, 2016, in July 2022 this value was reached again.
However, it is not yet possible to say whether the maximum value in the official data from the US climate agency NOAA will be confirmed. The evaluations of “Climate Reanalyzer” are so-called reanalyses, explained Mojib Latif from the Geomar Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Kiel. “Not only real weather data are included, but also model calculations.” The calculated values of the various climate platforms – in Europe, for example, the climate change service Copernicus – did not necessarily match.
According to Latif, the maximum value does not come as a surprise: in the North Atlantic and in general a large part of the world’s oceans, exceptionally high temperatures on the sea surface have been recorded for months. “Of course, this also has an influence on the air temperatures.”
For the first time in several years, El Niño conditions prevail in the tropical Pacific, as the World Weather Organization (WMO) announced on Tuesday. The natural weather phenomenon can also drive up the temperatures, which are already constantly rising in the course of the climate crisis. “The probability of new records increases significantly,” said Latif. “I expect that maybe 2023, but definitely 2024, will be a record year for global temperatures. The last such year was 2016 – an El Niño year.
