July 2023 was likely the hottest month in 120,000 years

Date:
Mon, 31 Jul 2023 13:00:00 +0000

Description:
Smoke rises as teams try to extinguish wildfires on Rhodes island, Greece on July 25, 2023. Some 19,000 people have been evacuated from the Greek island
of Rhodes as wildfires continued burning for a sixth day, authorities said on Sunday. As many as 266 firefighters and 49 fire engines were on the ground battling the blazes, assisted by five helicopters and 10 airplanes. Ahmed Abbasi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images An 'era of global boiling' is looming, the UN warns. The post July 2023 was likely the hottest month in 120,000
years appeared first on Popular Science .

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Smoke rises as teams try to extinguish wildfires on Rhodes island, Greece on July 25, 2023. Some 19,000 people have been evacuated from the Greek island
of Rhodes as wildfires continued burning for a sixth day, authorities said on Sunday. As many as 266 firefighters and 49 fire engines were on the ground battling the blazes, assisted by five helicopters and 10 airplanes. Ahmed Abbasi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Scientists are already calculating that July 2023 will be the hottest month
on recordand likely the warmest month that humanity has ever experienced. The United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the European
Unions Copernicus Climate Change Service a nnounced late last week that this months heat was beyond record-smashing . The planets temperature, they
report, has been temporarily passing over the crucial threshold of limiting global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial temperatures.

[Related: Extreme heat warning extends to more than 100 million people in
the US .]

This news comes as no surprise to the millions of people around the world facing extreme heat. Phoenix, Arizona is about to enter its 31st straight day of temperatures above 110 degrees . Parts of northwest China saw a record-breaking 126 degrees earlier this month, while southern Europe is seeing wildfires following an extreme heatwave . These global heat waves
would be virtually impossible without climate change , according to an early analysis released last week by the World Weather Attribution initiative.

We can say that the first three weeks of July have been the warmest three
week periods ever observed in our record, Carlo Buentempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said via Zoom and in a statement . This anomaly is so large with respect to other record-breaking months in our
record that we are virtually certain that the month, the month as a whole, will become the warmest July on record, the warmest month on record, in all likelihood.

Records like these generally track average air temperature across the entire world and are broken by hundredths of a degrees. However, the temperature for Julys first 23 days averaged 62.51 degrees , higher than the 61.93 degrees
set in July 2019 , according to the UNs report. The data for these records goes back to 1940, but many scientists believe that it is almost certain that these recent readings are the warmest the Earth has been in 120,000 years, based on the data collected from coral reefs, deep sea sediment cores, and tree rings that paint a picture of past climates. Credit: European
Commissions Copernicus Climate Change Service

Buontempo and other scientists believe that the steamy weather can be attributed to a combination of human-caused climate change and this years natural El Nio warming pattern in parts of the central Pacific. This pattern changes weather around the world and follows three straight years of La Nia , a Pacific cooling pattern. Despite multiple La Nia cooling patterns, 2015 to 2022 saw eight of the warmest years on record based on a 173 year long dataset. WMOs Director of Climate Services Chris Hewitt cited a clear and dramatic warming decade on decade since the 1970s.

[Related: World set to temporarily breach major climate threshold in next five years .]

But now the La Nia has ended to be replaced by the sea-warming El Nio effect
waters have begun to heat up in the tropical Pacific, bringing the almost certain likelihood that one of the next five years will be the warmest on record, Hewitt said in a statement.

In May , WMO scientists predicted that the world will likely temporarily exceed the 2.7 degree threshold for at least one of the next five years.

Temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean have also been skyrocketing since the spring. In mid-May, the global ocean surface temperatures reached unprecedented levels for the time of year and the ocean temperatures off the coast of Florida reached 100 degrees in some locations.

UN Secretary-General Antnio Guterres underscored the need for global action
to reduce emissions, climate adaptations, and climate finance. He warned that the era of global warming has ended and the era of global boiling has
arrived.

We can still stop the worst, said Guterres. But to do so we must turn a year of burning heat into a year of burning ambition.

The post July 2023 was likely the hottest month in 120,000 years appeared first on Popular Science . Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.



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Link to news story: https://www.popsci.com/environment/july-2023-hottest-month-on-record/


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