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Continuing an astonishing series of record-breaking warming events this year, the past Monday and Tuesday, July 3 and July 4, have been measured to be the hottest two days for the earth ever. July 3 was the first time that the global average daily temperature crossed the 17 degree Celsius mark. That record was broken within a day, with July 4 turning out to be even hotter.
The average temperature on July 3 was measured to be 17.01 degree Celsius. The next day recorded 17.18 degree Celsius.
Scientists expect more such record-breaking events in the near future.
A 17 degree Celsius temperature may not appear to be particularly warm. But this temperature was not over any one place or region. Instead, this is a measure of the global average temperature for the day, the average over both land and ocean, including the ice sheets in the polar region and the snow of the high mountains where surface temperatures are well below zero degree Celsius.
Average temperatures over oceans are around 21 degree Celsius, and oceans occupy nearly 70 per cent of the earth’s surface. The Antarctic Ice Sheet, where temperatures can easily drop to -50 degree Celsius, covers about 8.3 per cent of earth’s surface while the Greenland Ice Sheet, which includes the Arctic region and north pole, constitutes about 1.2 per cent. The glaciers and ice caps in the mountain are estimated to account for about another 0.5 per cent of the surface.
So, while there are places that routinely experience temperatures in the high 40-plus degree Celsius range, the global average is relatively cool.
Before the 17 degree Celsius mark was breached on June 3, the hottest daily temperature happened to be 16.92 degree Celsius, recorded in August 2016, amid one of the strongest El Nino events.
It is no surprise that the latest record-breaking event has also been measured when an El Nino is developing.
On Tuesday, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) announced the formal onset of the El Nino phase in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean and warned that this could lead to further increases in temperature this year.
“The onset of El Nino will greatly increase the likelihood of breaking temperature records and triggering more extreme heat in many parts of the world and in the ocean,” WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas said in a statement.
El Nino, an abnormal warming of sea surface waters in the Pacific, off the northwestern coast of South America, is a large-scale climate driver known to have an overall warming effect on the planet.
The record-breaking temperature events of Monday and Tuesday were reported by the Climate Reanalyzer project of the University of Maine using data captured by the Climate Forecast System of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), which is part of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The measured temperature was 0.81 degree Celsius higher than the normal on Monday and 0.98 degree Celsius higher on Tuesday.
“Though NCEP CFSR (the dataset in question) only begins in 1979, other datasets let us look further back and conclude that this day (Monday) was warmer than any point since instrumental measurements began, and probably for a long time before that as well,” said Robert Rohde, lead scientist of the Earth Team at the University of Berkeley, US, on Twitter.
“This (the new record) is driven by the combination of El Nino on top of global warming, and we may well see a few even warmer days over the next six weeks,” Rohde said.
With the end of a strong La Nina phase that had subdued the global rise in temperatures for the past two years, 2023, right from its start, was predicted to be extremely hot. And the predictions have not been off the mark.
The UK Met Office announced Tuesday that the past month was the hottest ever June for the UK. Before that, NOAA of the United States had measured this year’s March to be the earth’s second-warmest ever, May to be the third warmest ever, and February and April to be the fourth warmest ever.
Canada is battling its worst forest fires ever, while China is in the midst of a severe heat wave, both events made at least five times more likely by climate change according to rapid attribution studies.
The WMO, in its annual State of Global Climate report published in May, had said that it was almost certain that at least one of the next five years (2023 to 2027) would turn out to be the warmest year on record, leaving 2016, the current record holder, behind. It had further said there was a 66 per cent chance that at least one of these years would also breach the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold, meaning that average global temperatures in that year would be at least 1.5 degree Celsius higher than pre-industrial times.
