Record and abnormal temperatures, droughts and fires… July 2022, one of the warmest

The world experienced record temperatures last month, but also abnormal ones: while in Europe and the United States the records were broken by the high part of the thermometer and many forests burned, in the Horn of Africa, southern India, much of Asia Central America and Australia recorded below-average temperatures.

Amid extreme heat, drought and wildfires, many parts of the world have just experienced one of the three warmest Julys on record, as recently declared by the World Meteorological Organization.

Temperatures across much of Europe were about 0.4 degrees Celsius above the average for the years 1991-2020. Due to an intense heat wave in mid-July, the regions of Southwest and Western Europe were the highest regions on average.

“This despite the fact that the La Niña event is supposed to have a cooling influence,” explained the Organization’s spokeswoman, Claire Nullis. “We saw this in some places, but not globally,” she added.

Nullis explained that 2002 was “one of the three warmest Julys on record; slightly below 2019 and somewhat warmer than 2016, although the difference is too narrow to determine.”

A helicopter flies over the Arctic, where new temperature records have been set and the melting of glaciers has already left a palpable mark of the effect these have on our planet. (Photo: Meteorological Organization (WMO))

record temperatures

Portugal, western France and Ireland broke records, while the UK reached 40 degrees for the first time in its known history.

Wales and Scotland also broke national records for daily maximum temperatures.

Spain in turn recorded its warmest month of July, with an average national temperature of 25.6 degrees and a heat wave that lasted from July 8 to 26, this being the most intense and lasting heat wave recorded.

Using data from the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, the UN weather agency confirmed that Europe had its sixth warmest July ever.

The heat moved north and east, marking very high temperatures in other countries, such as Germany and parts of Scandinavia, with local July and all-time records in several locations in Sweden.

temperature anomalies

At the same time, from the Horn of Africa to southern India, and much of central Asia to most of Australia experienced below-average temperatures.

These temperatures also dominated a strip of territory that extended from Iceland, through Scandinavia and the Baltic countries, to the Caspian Sea.

Additionally, temperatures in Georgia and much of Turkey were generally below average.

polar ice shrinks

July also saw the lowest Antarctic sea ice in recorded history, found to be 7% below average.

Arctic sea ice was 4% below average, ranking 12th out of all July months, according to satellite records.

The glaciers have seen a “brutal, brutal summer,” Nullis continued.

“According to the meteorological services, we started with little snow accumulation in the glaciers of the Alps, and now we have the successive heat waves. This is bad news for the glaciers of Europe. However, the outlook for the Greenland glaciers is more varied, since there hasn’t been incessant heat. (Font: UN News)