After hottest June, Earth heading for warmest month ever
As climate continues to heat up, temperature records keep breaking.
Last month has been confirmed as the hottest June ever, according to data from both the US space agency (NASA) and the European Union‘s satellite agency.
Data this week from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the EU, showed that the global average temperature for June 2019 was the highest on record for the month.
The global temperature was about 0.1 degree Celsius higher than the previous warmest June, which was recorded in 2016.
European average temperatures were more than 2C above average and daytime highs were 6-10C above normal over most of France, Germany and northern Spain during the final days of the month, according to C3S.
C3S admitted it is difficult to directly link the heatwave to climate change, but noted that such extreme weather events are expected to become more common due to global warming.
“Although local temperatures may have been lower or higher than those forecast, our data shows that the temperatures over the southwestern region of Europe during the last week of June were unusually high,” Jean-Noel Thepaut, head of C3S, said. “Although this was exceptional, we are likely to see more of these events in the future due to climate change.”
Peter Stott, an expert in analysing the role of climate change in extreme weather at the United Kingdom’s Met Office, claimed that “a similarly extreme heatwave 100 years ago would have likely been around 4C cooler”.
In response to the new numbers, Michael Mann, the director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, wrote on Twitter: “This is significant. But stay tuned for July numbers. July is the warmest month of the year globally. If this July turns out to be the warmest July (it has a good shot at it), it will be the warmest month we have measured on Earth.”
The scientists stressed that this outcome is uncertain because conditions could change in the second half of the month, but it underscores a broader pattern of steadily rising temperatures caused by increasing emissions of carbon dioxide.