July 2023 is on track to be the hottest month ever recorded, and may be the hottest month in the last 120,000 years, scientists have said.
Temperature readings of the air and sea as well as losses of Antarctic sea ice have all smashed previous records this summer, manifesting in relentlessly extreme heatwaves and wildfires around the world.
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and Copernicus, the European Union’s climate watchers, said this July will be the hottest “by a significant margin” despite looking at data from only the first three weeks.
July 6 was the hottest day ever recorded, with a global mean temperature of 17.08C, and of the 30 hottest days ever recorded, 21 of them have been during this month.
Dr Karsten Haustein, a climate scientist from Leipzig University who ran a separate reanalysis of the data, said given that the last time global temperatures were this high was 120,000 years ago, there is a “decent chance” of this July being the hottest month on Earth since then.
Speaking on the rising temperatures in a televised address, UN Secretary General António Guterres warned of “unbreathable” air and “unbearable” temperatures to come.
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