Monday, 3rd July, was the hottest day ever recorded globally, according to data from the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction.
The average global temperature reached 17.01 degrees Celsius, surpassing the August, 2016, record of 16.92 degrees as heatwaves sizzled around the world.
A woman walks with cold patches on her forehead and neck amid a red alert for heatwave in Beijing, China, on 23rd June, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Tingshu Wang/File photo
The southern US has been suffering under an intense heat dome in recent weeks. In China, an enduring heatwave continued, with temperatures above 35 degrees. North Africa has seen temperatures near 50 degrees.
And even Antarctica, currently in its winter, registered anomalously high temperatures. Ukraine’s Vernadsky Research Base in the white continent’s Argentine Islands recently broke its July temperature record with 8.7 degrees.
“This is not a milestone we should be celebrating,” said climate scientist Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Britain’s Imperial College London.
“It’s a death sentence for people and ecosystems.”
Scientists said climate change, combined with an emerging El Nino pattern, were to blame.
“Unfortunately, it promises to only be the first in a series of new records set this year as increasing emissions of [carbon dioxide] and greenhouse gases coupled with a growing El Nino event push temperatures to new highs,” said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, in a statement.
