Meteorologists say the Earth hit a global warming record in June and July is getting hotter.

An already warmer Earth has reached its hottest June on record, beating the old global record by almost a quarter of a degree (0.13 degrees Celsius), and the world’s oceans set temperature records for the third straight month, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. Thursday.

The global average temperature in June of 61.79 degrees (16.55 degrees Celsius) was 1.89 degrees (1.05 degrees Celsius) above the 20th century average, the first time in the world that a summer month was more than a degree Celsius hotter than usual, according to NOAA. Other weather monitoring systems such as NASA, Berkeley Earth and Europe’s Copernicus have already listed last month as the hottest June on record, but NOAA is the gold standard for record keeping with data from 174 years before 1850.

The increase from the June record is a “significantly large jump” because typically global monthly records are so wide that they often jump by hundredths rather than quarters of a degree, said NOAA climate specialist Ahira Sánchez-Lugo.

“Recent record temperatures, plus the extreme fires, pollution and flooding we are seeing this year, are what we expect to see in a warmer climate,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald. “We are just beginning to understand what impacts of climate change we expect to worsen.”

Both land and ocean were the hottest in June. But the globe’s sea surface, which makes up 70% of the Earth’s area, set monthly high temperature records in April, May and June, and the North Atlantic has been off the charts since mid-March, scientists say. The Caribbean has broken previous records, as has the UK.

The first half of 2023 was the third hottest January-June period on record after 2016 and 2020, according to NOAA.

NOAA says there is a 20 percent chance that 2023 will be the hottest year on record, with next year more likely, but the likelihood of a record is growing, with outside scientists like Kim Cobb of Brown University predicting a “photo finish” with 2016 2020 was the hottest year on record. Robert Rohde of Berkeley Earth said his group estimated that there was an 80% chance that 2023 would be the hottest year on record.

This is because it will likely only get hotter. July is usually the hottest month of the year, with the record for July and the hottest month of any year being 62.08 degrees (16.71 degrees Celsius), set in both July 2019 and July 2021. Eleven of the first dozen days of July were hotter than ever recorded, according to an unofficial and preliminary analysis by the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer. The Japan Meteorological Agency and the World Meteorological Organization said the world had just experienced the hottest week on record.

NOAA recorded water temperatures around Florida at 98 degrees (36.7 degrees Celsius) on Wednesday near the Everglades and 97 degrees (36.1 degrees Celsius) on Tuesday near the Florida Keys, while some forecasters predict a near-world record temperatures in Death Valley are about 130 degrees. degrees (54.4 degrees Celsius) this weekend.

NOAA Global Analysis Lead Russ Vose said the record-breaking hot June is due to two main causes: long-term warming caused by heat-trapping gases released from burning coal, oil and natural gas, which are then amplified by natural El Niño, which warms parts of the Pacific Ocean and changes weather around the world, adding extra warmth to already rising global temperatures. He said that probably most of the June warming is due to long-term human causes, because so far this new El Niño is still considered mild to moderate. The peak is forecast to occur in winter, which is why NOAA and other forecasters are predicting that 2024 will be even hotter than this year.

While El Niño and its cooling downside, La Niña, “have a big impact on annual temperatures, in the long run their impact is much smaller than human-induced warming,” said climatologist Zeke Hausvater of Berkeley Earth and Technology. Stripe company. “In 1998, the world experienced a Super El Niño event with record global temperatures; temperatures in 1998 would be unusually cool today. Human-induced climate change adds a constant amount of heat equivalent to a Super El Niño” to the atmosphere every decade.”

World and Antarctic sea ice levels hit record lows in June, NOAA says.

“Until we stop burning fossil fuels, the situation will only get worse,” climate scientist Friederike Otto from Imperial College London wrote in an email. able to cope.”

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