This July will probably be the hottest month ever recorded, announced Gavin Schmidt, chief climatologist at the US Aerospace Agency (NASA). Numerous temperature records have already been broken in recent weeks.
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The current July will likely be the hottest month ever recorded for “hundreds, if not thousands of years” across the globe, NASA’s chief climatologist Gavin Schmidt announced Thursday.
Several heat records have already been broken in July, according to two tools from the European Union and the University of Maine (United States), which combine ground and satellite data to create models that generate preliminary estimates.
Although the two mechanisms differ slightly from each other, the upward trends in temperatures are unequivocal and will probably be reflected in the next monthly reports from US agencies, with more consolidated data, Schmidt added, in an exchange with journalists.
On Wednesday, the European Copernicus Observatory had already warned that the world was heading towards its hottest July since measurements began, after a June that already broke records.
“We are seeing unprecedented changes around the world. Heat waves in the United States, Europe and China are breaking records,” Schmidt added. Especially since they cannot be attributed solely to the El Niño phenomenon, “which has just arrived”.
El Niño is not yet responsible
El Niño is a cyclical weather phenomenon that originates in the Pacific Ocean and causes an increase in global temperatures, accompanied by droughts in some parts of the world and torrential rains in others.
Although El Niño plays a small role in current observations, “we have been seeing record sea surface temperatures, even outside the tropics, for several months now,” Schmidt said. “And we expect this to continue,” added the NASA climatologist, “because we continue to emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”
Current events increase the likelihood that 2023 will be the hottest year on record. That chance is currently “50-50,” according to Schmidt’s calculations. But other scientists suggest a probability of up to 80%, he added.
“We hope that 2024 will be an even warmer year, because we will start it with the El Niño phenomenon that is accumulating at the moment, and that will reach its peak towards the end of this year,” he concluded.
with AFP
Text adapted from its original French version
