Hottest June on record, surpassing 2023 maximum: EU climate monitor. July 8, 2024

Global air temperatures in the 12 months to June 2024 were the highest in the data record - on average 1.64°C above pre-industrial levels, Copernicus said. Image credit: AFP

By AFP -Agence France Presse

Hottest June on record, surpassing 2023 maximum: EU climate monitor.

The new high came halfway through a year marked by climatic extremes.

The year 2023 was the hottest on record, with the rise in the Earth's surface temperature almost exceeding the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius, the European Union's climate monitors reported on Tuesday.

Climate change has intensified heat waves, droughts, and forest fires across the planet and raised the global thermometer 1.48°C above the pre-industrial reference, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said.

"It's also the first year with every day more than a degree warmer than in the pre-industrial period," said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

"Temperatures during 2023 are likely to exceed those of any period in at least the last 100,000 years."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the year was a mere preview of the "catastrophic future that awaits us if we don't act now", according to his spokesman.

Almost half of the year exceeded the 1.5ºC threshold, beyond which climate impacts are more likely to become self-reinforcing and catastrophic, according to scientists.

However, even if the Earth's average surface temperature exceeds 1.5°C in 2024, as some scientists predict, this does not mean that the world has failed to meet the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global warming below this limit.

This would only happen after several successive years above the 1.5°C reference, and even then, the 2015 treaty allows for the possibility of reducing the Earth's temperature after a period of "overshoot".

The year 2023 was marked by major fires in Canada, extreme droughts in the Horn of Africa or the Middle East, unprecedented summer heat waves in Europe, the United States, and China, as well as record winter heat in Australia and South America.

"These events will continue to worsen until we abandon fossil fuels and achieve net-zero emissions," said Reading University climate change professor Ed Hawkins, who did not contribute to the report.

"We will continue to suffer the consequences of our inactions today for generations to come."

The Copernicus findings were made a month after a climate agreement was reached at COP28 in Dubai, calling for a gradual transition away from fossil fuels, the main cause of climate warming.

"We desperately need to rapidly reduce the use of fossil fuels and get to zero to preserve the habitable climate on which we all depend," said John Marsham, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Leeds.

The year registered another ominous record: two days in November 2023 exceeded the pre-industrial benchmark by more than two degrees Celsius.

Copernicus predicted that the 12-month period ending in January or February 2024 would "exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level".

Oceans in overdrive

Reliable meteorological records date back to 1850, but older proxy data for climate change - from tree rings, ice cores, and sediments - show that 2023 temperatures "exceed those of any period in the last 100,000 years at least", said Burgess.

Records were broken on all continents. In Europe, 2023 was the second warmest year on record, 0.17°C colder than 2020.

The year 2023 was the start of the El Niño climate phenomenon, which occurs naturally and warms the waters in the South Pacific, causing warmer weather.

The phenomenon is expected to peak in 2024 and is linked to the eight consecutive months of record heat from June to December.

Ocean temperatures around the world have also been "persistently and exceptionally high", with many seasonal records broken since April.

Increase in CO2 and methane

These unprecedented ocean temperatures have caused devastating marine heatwaves for aquatic life and increased the intensity of storms.

The oceans absorb more than 90% of the excess heat caused by human activity and play an important role in regulating the Earth's climate.

Rising temperatures have also accelerated the melting of ice shelves, frozen ridges that help prevent the huge glaciers of Greenland and West Antarctica from slipping into the ocean and raising sea levels.

Antarctic sea ice reached record lows in 2023.

"The extremes we have observed in recent months are a dramatic testimony to how far we are from the climate in which our civilization developed," said Carlo Buontempo, director of C3S.

In 2023, carbon dioxide and methane concentrations reached record levels of 419 parts per million and 1,902 parts per billion, respectively.

Methane is the second largest contributor to global warming, after CO2, and is responsible for around 30% of the increase in global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

© 2024 AFP