The world just recorded its hottest day ever

Researchers in the United States reported that Earth experienced the hottest day ever recorded by humans on July 3. Unofficial data University of Maine scientists from the Climate Reanalyzer project initially suggested the record had been broken, an observation then confirmed by scientists at the US National Centers for Environmental Forecasting (NCEP).

And there’s more to come. New data from Climate Reanalyzer suggest, in fact, that the July 3 record was broken the very next day, although this awaits official confirmation.

Climate analyzers the preliminary record for the hottest day is based on data dating back only to 1979, when the satellite mmonitoring recordings have begun. But the US agency was able to trace it further back to 1880, which includes instrumental recordings released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The global average air temperature at 2 meters (about 6 feet) above the ground exceeded 17 degrees Celsius (62.6 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time, surpassing the previous record of 16.92°C (62.46°F), set in July and August of 2016.

NCEP placed Earth’s average temperature yesterday as the single hottest day yet measured by humans, Robert Rohde, lead scientist at the University of California, Berkeley Berkeley Earth’s environmental data science team, tweeted on July 4th. In addition to the greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activity and responsible for global warming, there is the El Nio effect, the name that climatologists give to the periodic warming of surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which can drive weather models all over the world.

Now that El Nio’s warmer phase is starting, we can expect many more daily, monthly and annual records over the next 1.5 years, climate researcher Leon Simons he told the BBC.

Graph: Global heat is breaking records

June was the hottest month on record

The new heat record comes on the heels of one of the hottest months on record in parts of the world, including in the UK, where the meteorological agency warned that new heat records would occur more frequently due to the impact of the use of fossil fuels, a major source of greenhouse gases, on the planet. In addition to natural variability, background warming of the Earth’s atmosphere due to human-induced climate change has increased the possibility of reaching record temperatures, said Paul DaviesMet Office climate extremes principal fellow and chief meteorologist.

During the 4th of July weekend in the United States, heat warnings were put in place for more than 30 million people like multiple states have seen the temperature exceed 100F (37.7C) for days on end.

In Asia, the Chinese capital of Beijing reported almost 10 days in a row temperatures above 35C. So are the heat waves sweeping through India exacerbating povertyincreasing the incidence of gender violenceAND causing dozens of deaths.

Quotable: an unwanted milestone

This is not a milestone we should celebrate… It is a death sentence for people and ecosystems.Climate scientist Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment of Imperial College London.

Global warming, in numbers

40 billion:Tons of CO2 warming the planet₂ humans are emitting into the atmosphere every year, according to senior climatologist Pieter Tans of NOAAs Global Monitoring Laboratory

98%: The likelihood of an El Nio event reaching at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, warmer than the record set in 2016, when there was an exceptionally strong El Nio

12-17C: How much the world average air temperature fluctuates on any given day during the year

17.18C: The global average air temperature 2 meters above the ground on July 4, according to unofficial data, which would mean that the July 3 record has already been surpassed. Official confirmation from NOAA is pending

2,000: People reporting heat stress for two days in late June during the hajj religious pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia when temperatures reached 48C

One more thing: the world is getting warmer

Logging the record temperature for a day or two is not in itself threatening. In the climate assessment community, I don’t think we should assign gravitas type to a single day observation like we would a month or a year, according to Deke Arndtdirector of the National Center for Environmental Information, a division of NOAA.

But it’s a worrying sign that global warming is entering uncharted territory. Unfortunately, he promises to be only the first in a string of new records set this year, Zeke Hausfather, a researcher at Berkeley Earth, warned. Things like heatwaves, fires, air pollution, floods, and storms it will get worseand consequently lead to crop losses, disease and migration.

The climate goal set in the 2015 Paris Agreement of preventing global temperatures from rising more than 2°C and preferably no more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels is increasingly under threat as such increases have already been sign in over several days. In Europe temperatures in 2022 they were about 2.3C higher compared to pre-industrial levels. If global temperatures were to exceed the Paris Agreement target, life on Earth would never be the same. Some of the consequences including mass extinction of species, increasingly common and deadly extreme weather events, and melting glaciers would trigger mass flooding, threatening some of the world’s most populous cities.

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