July 22, Monday, was again the hottest day on record, according to preliminary data from a European Union monitoring agency, inching past Sunday, July 21 which had just taken the title. The global average surface air temperature rose to 17.15 degrees Celsius — 0.06 degrees higher than Sunday's marginal record according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which has been tracking such patterns since 1940.
The record had last been set for four consecutive days in a row in early July 2023. Before that, the hottest day was in August 2016. "This past Monday might have set a new global record for warmest absolute global average temperature ever — by that I mean going back tens of thousands of years," said climate scientist Karsten Haustein at Leipzig University in Germany.
China, and Japan registered record heat
In recent days, cities in Japan, Indonesia and China have registered record heat. Gulf countries, too, have sweltered through heat indexes — factoring in humidity — exceeding 60 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, temperatures in parts of Europe have surged past 45 degrees Celsius.
Climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, is behind the record, scientists said. However, unlike last year, which saw climate change combined with the El Nio climate pattern to usher in a new daily record, that is not the case this July. Haustein said it was "remarkable" that the record had been breached now the world was well into neutral territory and no longer feeling the impact of El Nino.
Why is Earth getting warmer?
Every month since June 2023 has now ranked as the planet's hottest since records began, compared with the corresponding month in previous years. Some scientists have suggested 2024 could surpass 2023 as the hottest year since records began, as climate change and the El Nino natural weather phenomenon — which ended in April — have pushed temperatures ever higher this year.
"As a consequence of the increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — we are bound to see new records being broken in the next few months, in the next few years," Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus service, said.
Scientists and environmental advocates have long called for global leaders and wealthier countries to phase out and end the reliance on fossil fuels to prevent catastrophic effects of climate change, including increased heatwaves.
(With inputs from agency)
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