According to preliminary data from scientists, temperatures until Sunday are six straight days above the previous record value of 2016. The hottest day recorded in the world was Thursday, with 17.23 degrees. According to the platform, the global average temperature was also above 17 degrees on the other days from Monday to Saturday.
The previous daily record from University of Maine Climate Reanalyzer data, dating back to 1979, was 16.92 degrees on August 13 and 14, 2016, and the value was reached again in July 2022. However, the records previous ones can still be broken: according to experts, the highest values are usually reached around the end of July, as the large landmasses in the northern hemisphere are particularly warm.
AP/Press Democrat/Kent Porter Northern Hemisphere heat — a wildfire in California, north of San Francisco. The photo was taken about a week and a half ago.
Sea surface as trigger
According to experts, persistently exceptionally high sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic and other marine regions are having an impact on current development. This causes near-surface air temperatures over the ocean and continents to fluctuate around elevated background levels, which in turn increases the likelihood of new temperature records.
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How to deal with extreme weather?
On Thursday alone, Copernicus, the EU’s climate change service, reported that June was the warmest in the world since records began in 1979. Furthermore, for the first time in several years, El Niño conditions prevail in the tropical Pacific, as recently announced by the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Combining a variety of data
Climate Reanalyzer assessments are called “reanalyses” – they are a combination of different observational data. Satellite data, data from weather balloons, weather stations and a host of other measurements are used. Climate Reanalyzer is one of several platforms such as ERA5 from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).
Due to differences in the data feed and models used, datasets can deviate noticeably from each other locally and in the short term – the larger the areas considered, the smaller the differences usually become.
Extreme weather and climate crisis
While individual extreme events cannot be directly attributed to a specific cause, according to the current Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, it is clear that extreme weather events such as floods, storms and heat are becoming more frequent and more intense as a result of the climate crisis. That means: precipitation and storms are getting heavier, heat waves are getting hotter, and droughts are getting drier.