Now it’s official: According to data from the EU climate change service Copernicus, July was the hottest month ever measured. The global average temperature was 16.95 degrees, 0.33 degrees higher than in the previous record month of July 2019, as Copernicus reports. The sea temperature was also higher than ever recorded.
“These records have serious consequences for people and for the planet, which is subject to increasingly frequent and intense extreme events,” warned Copernicus Deputy Director Samantha Burgess. According to the data, the world’s hottest day to date was July 6, 2023 with a global average temperature of 17.08 degrees.
While the Copernicus data only goes back as far as 1940, climate research, which reconstructs historical climate from tree rings or air bubbles in glaciers, suggests July temperatures are unprecedented in thousands of years, said the Copernicus director at the European center for medium-range weather forecast (ECMWF), Carlos Buontempo, end of July. According to the Copernicus data, the temperature over land in July was 0.72 degrees above the average for the years 1991 to 2020. The sea temperature around ten meters below the surface was 0.51 degrees higher.
The Copernicus data is based on computer-generated analyzes involving measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world. The US climate agency NOAA will publish its data for July in mid-August. The World Weather Organization (WMO) in Geneva is now not ruling out the possibility that 2023 as a whole will be hotter than the previous record year of 2016. The average temperature was 1.3 degrees above the pre-industrial level (1850 to 1900).
In July, the Paris climate target was exceeded for the first time in a month
Since then, global warming has been progressing due to man-made climate change. It has accelerated sharply since the 1980s. Especially for Germany, July was definitely not a record month, as an expert from the German Weather Service (DWD) said. Although the month was too warm in Germany in a long-term comparison, it was not record-breaking either for July or overall.
Globally, however, July 2023 is the first recorded month with an average temperature of about 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, as reported by Copernicus. In the Paris climate agreement, the world agreed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees if possible. However, this is not about measurements for a month, but about the annual average temperatures over a longer period of time. According to climate research calculations, individual years should be higher in just a few years.
According to experts, not nearly enough is being done worldwide to significantly limit the rise in temperature. According to the UN, the efforts made so far would lead to a warming of around 2.8 degrees. In Europe, temperatures are rising almost twice as fast as the global average: According to Copernicus, in the past five years it has been an average of 2.2 degrees warmer in Europe than in the pre-industrial era, and 1.2 degrees worldwide.
The effects of climate change are being felt around the world and are increasing with every, even slight, increase in temperature. The consequences include: There are more frequent and stronger heat waves, droughts, forest fires, storms and floods. Glaciers melt, more water evaporates, making drinking water scarce. The ice is melting on the polar ice caps. As a result, sea levels are rising, threatening coastal towns. Biodiversity is shrinking because some animals and plants cannot adapt quickly enough. Humans are also threatened in many ways, for example by high temperatures. “Every year in Europe alone, thousands of people die as a result of extreme heat,” said climate scientist Friederike Otto from Imperial College in London at the end of July.