Author: SIBI ARASU and SETH BORENSTEIN
Monday was the hottest day on record globally, beating the record set the day before, according to the European Climate Change Service, as the heat continued to be felt around the world from Japan to Bolivia to the United States.
Provisional satellite data released by Copernicus on Wednesday showed Monday was 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.1 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than Sunday.
Climate scientists say this could be the warmest in 120,000 years due to human-caused climate change. While scientists can't say for certain that Monday was the hottest day of the entire period, average temperatures haven't been this high since long before humans developed agriculture.
But it's a difficult decision to make because data from tree rings, corals and ice cores don't go back that far, said Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann.
Rising temperatures in recent decades are consistent with what climate scientists predict will happen if humans continue to burn fossil fuels at an ever-increasing rate.
“We are in an era where weather and climate records are regularly exceeding our tolerances, resulting in insurmountable losses of life and livelihoods,” said climate scientist Roxy Mathew Cole of the Indian Tropical Meteorological Institute.
Natalie Mahowald, a climate scientist at Cornell University, said in an email that “heat deaths show how catastrophic the consequences will be if stronger action is not taken to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.” It is the main heat-absorbing gas.
Preliminary data from Copernicus showed the global average temperature on Monday was 17.15 degrees Celsius (62.87 degrees Fahrenheit). The record before this week was set a year ago. Before last year, the last warmest day on record was in 2016, when the average temperature was 16.8 degrees Celsius (62.24 degrees Fahrenheit).
While 2024 will be very warm, what enters new territory this week is a warmer-than-usual Antarctic winter, according to Copernicus. The same thing happened in the southern continent when the record was set in early July last year.
Copernicus' records date back to 1940, but other measurements by the US and British governments began in 1880. The hottest year in ten thousand years. It has now reached breakeven in the first six months of 2024.
Without human-caused climate change, extreme temperature records wouldn't be broken as frequently as they have been in recent years, scientists say.
Former UN climate negotiator Christiana Figueres said that if the world does not change course immediately, “we will all be scorched”, “but targeted national policies must achieve this shift.”
Scientists said it was “extraordinary” to see such warm weather two years in a row, especially as natural El Niño warming in the central Pacific ended earlier this year.
“This is yet another example of how much the planet is warming,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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Arazu reported from Bangalore, India, and Borenstein reported from Washington.
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Follow Sibi Arasu on X: @sibi123 With Seth Borenstein of @borenbears
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