July will be the hottest month in Earth's history since records exist. The average temperature has been 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, that is, what the planet was like before it was warmed by the burning of coal, oil and gas, and other human activities.

And not only that, according to a study by the climatologist at the University of Leipzig (Germany) Karsten Haustein, we could be enduring not only the hottest July since the first records of 1880, but the hottest in 120,000 years, when forests reached the Arctic Circle, the sea level was between six and nine meters higher, and hippos and elephants roamed what would one day be London.

Based on global temperature data from Berkeley Earth, the temperature in July 2023 will be more than 0.2°C higher than that of July 2019, the warmest month on record, setting a new global temperature record. Although other climatologists had already warned that July would probably be the hottest month ever recorded, Haustein's analysis is the first to confirm this and estimate the average temperature for the month.

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Climate crisis.

Heat waves are more frequent, long and intense

  • Editor: CARLOS FRESNEDA (Correspondent)London

Heat waves are more frequent, long and intense

Science.

Scientists conclude Europe's heatwave is 'almost impossible' without climate change

  • Writing: RICARDO F. COLMENERO

Scientists conclude Europe's heatwave is 'almost impossible' without climate change

The data recorded by ERA5 from the EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) is on track to be the same as Haustein's. The first three weeks of July were the warmest three-week period ever recorded. Its consequences have been heat waves recorded in much of North America, Asia and Europe, as well as severe forest fires in countries such as Canada and Greece, which have had a major impact on people's health, the environment and the world's economies.

"The extreme weather that is affecting millions is, unfortunately, the harsh reality of climate change and a foretaste of the future," said World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. "Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is more urgent than ever. Climate action is not a luxury but an obligation," he concludes.

The WMO predicts that there is a 98% chance that at least one of the next five years will be the warmest ever recorded.

On July 6, according to C3S, the average daily air temperature at the global surface surpassed the record set in August 2016, becoming the hottest day ever recorded, with July 5 and 7 in second and third place. Since May, the global average sea surface temperature has been well above previously observed values for the time of year; contributing to this exceptionally warm July.

The medieval warm period, around 900-1300 AD, used to be used as the most recent hot reference in time, but the truth is that the last of the important warm periods that the Earth lived was the Eemian period, and it took place 130,000 to 115,000 years ago, shortly before the last Ice Age. Palaeoclimatic studies confirm that the temperature in Greenland was about 5 °C higher than today. If the average temperature of the Earth continued to grow at the rate it does today, we would reach that record around the year 2100.

The fact that the increase in average temperature this month has been 1.5°C above does not mean that governments have definitively failed in their attempt to limit warming to the 1.5°C limit set in the Paris Agreement, according to Haustein's study, since average warming is measured on a more long-term timescale.

Nor is it the first time that a month is at 1.5 °C or more of the pre-industrial average. It already happened in 2016 and 2020, although it is the first time it happens in the northern hemisphere summer when the planet is warmer. That's why the study believes that you would probably have to go back 120,000 years to find these conditions. But since the temperature records are not accurate enough, it cannot be maintained with complete certainty that this July was the hottest of this interglacial era.

The fact that this month's temperature rise is at the long-term agreed maximum level reflects that, although the limit has not yet been exceeded, measures to reduce emissions are still insufficient, the study concludes, and the world is on track to renege on the agreement.

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