“We are truly in uncharted territory,” Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said in a statement, “and as the climate continues to warm, records will undoubtedly be broken in the coming months and years.”
While Sunday was slightly warmer than the world’s warmest day to date, Copernicus researchers noted it was unusually hotter than any day before. Until July 2023, the Earth’s daily average temperature record will remain unchanged. — The highest global temperature recorded was 16.8 degrees Celsius (62.24 degrees Fahrenheit), set in August 2016. But in the past year, the world has had 57 days that beat that record.
“What’s really surprising is how big the difference is between the temperatures over the last 13 months and the previous temperature record,” Buontempo said.
Scientists have only begun tracking global temperatures in the last few centuries, but there’s good reason to believe that Sunday was the hottest day on Earth since the start of the last Ice Age. Over 100,000 years agoStudies by paleoclimatologists — they Tree RingsExamination of ice cores, lake sediments and other ancient sources to understand past environments suggests that recent heat was all but impossible during the latest period of geologic time.
Sunday’s record heat was felt across nearly every continent, including vast swaths of Asia. humid During scorching days and dangerously hot nights. Temperatures in triple digits Western US Fueled out-of-control wildfiresIn many parts of Antarctica, the Copernican data showTemperatures were 12 degrees Celsius (22 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal.
by National Center for Environmental InformationIn the past seven days alone, 550 locations across the globe have broken daytime records for maximum temperatures.
The relentless heat has scientists convinced this year could be even hotter than last. In an analysis published last week, researchers from climate science nonprofit Berkeley Earth wrote: Estimation There is a 92 percent chance that 2024 will be the warmest year on record. The average temperature that year is virtually certain to be more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, exceeding what scientists consider to be the threshold of acceptable warming.
“The record temperatures we’ve seen this year are concerning but not surprising,” Andrew Pershing, vice president of science at the nonprofit Climate Central, said in an email. “We continue to see Carbon pollution As it is released into the atmosphere, global temperatures will continue to rise.”
