If you have been wondering why has the mercury been shooting up for so many days this summer with fires and record heat across many places, the answer is relatively simple.
July this year has been the hottest month recorded in history.
But there are major reasons behind this heat wave sweeping across continents, and climate change is one of them and perhaps the biggest.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization confirmed the last month had the highest temperature, attributing it to the strikingly rapid climate changes.
“July is typically the world’s warmest month of the year, but July 2021 outdid itself as the hottest July and month ever recorded,” NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said.
“This new record adds to the disturbing and disruptive path that climate change has set for the globe,” he added, citing the new global data released by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.
In terms of numbers, the combined land and ocean-surface temperature was 1.67 degrees F (0.93 of a degree C) above the 20th-century average of 60.4 degrees F (15.8 degrees C), making it the hottest July since records began 142 years ago, the NOAA said.
Previously the hottest July was in 2016, which was then tied in 2019 and 2020. But this year the temperature remained 0.02 of a degree F (0.01 of a degree C) higher than the previous record, according to NOAA.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the land-surface only temperature was the highest ever recorded for July, at an unprecedented 2.77 degrees F (1.54 degrees C) above average, surpassing the previous record set in 2012.
Asia had its hottest July on record, besting the previous record set in 2010; Europe had its second-hottest July on record—tying with July 2010 and trailing behind July 2018; and North America, South America, Africa, and Oceania all had a top-10 warmest July.
Meanwhile, NCEI’s Global Annual Temperature Rankings Outlook, 2021 says 2021 will be among 10 warmest years in history.
The latest data and forecasts come as scientists in a major report released this week by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, warns of unprecedented changes in store for the planet.
“Scientists from across the globe delivered the most up-to-date assessment of the ways in which the climate is changing,” Spinrad said in a statement.
“It is a sobering IPCC report that finds that human influence is, unequivocally, causing climate change, and it confirms the impacts are widespread and rapidly intensifying.”
Meanwhile, the UN says, the progress on climate goals remains sporadic. Climate experts have also pointed to unusual flooding and fires engulfing parts of America and Europe as indicators of more intense manifestations of climate change.
