A man tries to cool off at a fountain in Berlin,Germany on a day where the temperature reached 37 degrees celsius this month.Credit:Getty Images
Haustein’s analysis confirms earlier predictions by climate scientists and is based on temperature data gathered from around the world by the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“Not only will it be the warmest July,but the warmest month ever in terms of absolute global mean temperature. We may have to go back thousands – if not tens of thousands – of years to find similarly warm conditions on our planet,” he said.
“The record comes asEl Nino has just been declared in the tropical Pacific. While contributing to the warmth,the fundamental reason for why we are seeing such records is the continued release of vast amounts of greenhouse gases by humans.”
Since the full impact of the El Nino is yet to emerge,records are likely to continue to fall until early 2024,he said.
Professor Mark Howden,director of the Institute for Climate,Energy&Disaster Solutions at the Australian National University,has looked at the data used for the analysis and said that breaking temperature records by 0.2 degrees was extraordinary,likening it to an athlete breaking a world record by seconds rather than tenths of a second.