The EU’s climate monitor has reported that last month marked the hottest June on record worldwide, concluding a six-month period of extreme and destructive weather events ranging from floods to heatwaves.
The Next Edition learnt that the global average temperature for last month surpassed the previous June record set in 2023.
This new record was reached at the midpoint of a year characterized by extreme climate conditions.
The scorching heat has affected large areas of the world, including India, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Mexico, in the first half of this year.
Persistent rainfall, a phenomenon linked to a warmer planet by scientists, led to extensive flooding in Kenya, China, Brazil, Afghanistan, Russia, and France.
Wildfires have ravaged land in Greece and Canada, and just last week, Hurricane Beryl became the earliest category-five Atlantic hurricane on record as it swept across several Caribbean islands.
According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), every month since June 2023 has surpassed its own temperature record, resulting in a 13-month streak of unprecedented global heat.
“This is more than a statistical oddity and it highlights a large and continuing shift in our climate.
“Even if this specific streak of extremes ends at some point, we are bound to see new records being broken as the climate continues to warm.
“This was “inevitable” as long as humanity kept adding heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere,” AFP quoted the service director, Carlo Buontempo, saying.
Julien Nicolas, a senior scientist at C3S, mentioned that the series of record-breaking temperatures aligned with El Nino, a natural occurrence that leads to increased global temperatures.
“That was part of the factors behind the temperature records, but it was not the only one,” he told AFP.
