Written by Gloria Dickie
LONDON (Reuters) – Monday, July 22 was once again the hottest day in history, according to the first data of the monitoring organization of the European Union, last Sunday, July 21.
The global average temperature rose to 17.15 degrees Celsius – 0.06 degrees above Sunday's record low according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which has been tracking such patterns since the 1940s.
The record was last set for four consecutive days in early July 2023. Before that, the hottest day was in August 2016.
“This past Monday may have set a new global record for the hottest temperature ever – by that I mean going back tens of thousands of years,” said climate scientist Karsten Haustein at the University of Leipzig in Germany.
In recent days, cities in Japan, Indonesia and China have registered record heat. The countries of the Gulf, too, are tense with heat indicators – including humidity – exceeding 60 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, temperatures in some parts of Europe have risen above 45 degrees Celsius.
Climate change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, is a historical cause, scientists say. But unlike last year, when climate change combined with El Nino weather to bring a new daily record, that's not the case this July.
Haustein said it is “amazing” that the record has been broken now that the world has entered a neutral zone and is no longer experiencing an El Nino effect.
