Earth's hottest day record will continue to be broken

Photo caption — A woman holds an umbrella to protect herself from the hot sun in Madrid, Spain on July 18, 2022. Photo: AP

CNN (USA) reported that on Monday (July 3) this week, the average global temperature was 17.01 degrees Celsius. This is a record level in data from the US National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) since 1979. The next day, Tuesday (July 4), the temperature increased even higher, reaching 17.18 degrees Celsius. And the global temperature remained at this record high of 17.18 degrees Celsius on Wednesday.

The previous record was 16.92 degrees Celsius set in August 2016. The European Union's (EU) Copernicus Climate Change Service confirmed that global temperatures on July 3-4 also hit a record in its data going back to 1940.

Some scientists say that although the two agencies' data sets date back to the mid-20th century, it's almost certain that this week's hottest temperature on the planet is also a record for a much longer period, based on what we know from millennia of climate data extracted from ice cores and coral reefs.

Scientist Jennifer Francis at the Woodwell Climate Research Center (USA) told CNN that this week's temperature record is probably the highest in "at least 100,000 years".

But experts warn that the record could be broken several more times this year. Robert Rohde, a scientist at the US non-profit Berkeley Earth, tweeted on July 4 that the world “could experience even hotter days over the next six weeks.”

This global record is preliminary, but it is another sign of how quickly the world is warming. The occurrence of the El Niño climate phenomenon, which has a warming effect, is combining with the climate crisis to push temperatures higher.

“This is not a record worth celebrating and will not last long, with the Northern Hemisphere summer ahead and El Nino developing,” said Friederike Otto, a lecturer at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment.

So far in 2023, the world has recorded many temperature records with major consequences. The heat wave in late June covered Mexico and the southern United States. As of June 29, Texas and Louisiana confirmed that the heat wave led to 14 deaths. A day earlier, Mexican officials released a report showing that by the end of June, the country had had 112 deaths since March due to high temperatures.

A severe heat wave in India has killed 44 people in the state of Bihar. China has also experienced severe heat waves.

As the climate crisis intensifies, scientists are seeing clear signs that record-breaking heat waves will become more frequent and severe. The new global average temperature record is another wake-up call, Otto told CNN. “It just shows that we have to stop burning fossil fuels, not in decades, but now.”

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