(Washington) Last month was the hottest July on record, and marked the 14th consecutive month of record temperatures, according to a US agency.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) added in its monthly bulletin that 2024 now has a 77% chance of being the hottest year on record.
Last week, the European Copernicus agency, using a different data set, estimated that July 2024 was slightly warmer than July 2023.
But both agencies agree on the alarming nature of the situation, with every month recording exceptional monthly temperatures for nearly a year.
2024 will almost certainly be among the five warmest years on record, according to NOAA, which has data going back 175 years.
In July, the global temperature was 1.21 degrees Celsius above the 20-day average.H Century (15.8 degrees Celsius), according to the US agency.
She stressed that this period was particularly marked by a series of heat waves in the Mediterranean and Gulf countries. Africa, Europe and Asia recorded the warmest July, while it was the second warmest month in North America.
The oceans recorded their second-warmest July on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — the same result here as Copernicus — ending a 15-month streak of consecutive monthly sea temperature records.
But this slight improvement could have been more significant given the end of the El Niño climate phenomenon.
2023 has already been the hottest year on record.
“The devastating effects of climate change began long before 2023 and will continue until global greenhouse gas emissions reach carbon neutrality,” Samantha Burgess, deputy head of climate change at Copernicus, commented last week (C3S).
