It is "increasingly likely" that 2024 will be the hottest year on record, despite July ending a 13-month run of monthly temperature records, the EU's climate watchdog has said.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said last month was the second warmest on record books since 1940, having been only slightly cooler than July 2023.
Between June 2023 and June 2024, every month has surpassed its own temperature record for that time of year.
"The streak of months with record temperatures is over, but only just," said Samantha Burgess, C3S deputy director.
According to the C3S monthly bulletin, last month's global average temperature was 16.91 °C, just 0.04 °C lower than in July 2023.
But "the overall context has not changed, our climate continues to warm," Burgess said.
"The devastating effects of climate change began well before 2023 and will continue until global greenhouse gas emissions reach net zero," she said.
From January to July, global temperatures were 0.70°C warmer than the 1991-2020 average.
That anomaly would have to decrease significantly over the rest of this year for 2024 to be no hotter than 2023 - "making it increasingly likely that 2024 will be the warmest year on record," C3S says.
July 2024 was 1.48°C warmer than the estimated average temperatures for the month during the period 1850-1900, before the world began rapidly burning fossil fuels.
This has become a killer heat wave for hundreds of millions of people.
The Earth experienced its two hottest days on record, with average global temperatures virtually leveling off on July 22 and 23, reaching 17.6 °C, C3S reported.
The Mediterranean was gripped by a heatwave that scientists say would have been "virtually impossible" without global warming, while China and Japan sweated through their hottest July on record.
Record rainfall drenched Pakistan, wildfires devastated western US states and Hurricane Beryl left a trail of destruction as it swept from the Caribbean to the southeastern US.
Ocean temperatures, which absorb 90% of the excess heat caused by human activity, were also the second warmest on record for the month of July.
Average sea surface temperatures were 20.88 °C last month, just 0.01 °C lower than in July 2023.
This marks the end of a 15-month period of soaring ocean heat records.
However, C3S scientists note that "air temperatures over the ocean have remained abnormally high in many regions" despite the shift from the El Niño climate model, which is helping to spike global temperatures, to its opposite, the La Niña model, which is having a cooling effect.
On Wednesday, World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Celeste Saulo marked the year of "widespread, intense and prolonged heatwaves."
"It's getting too hot to deal with," she said. | BGNES
