Earth has continued its unprecedented streak of record-breaking hot months, with June 2024 maintaining the trend, according to the European climate service Copernicus.
Scientists are hopeful that the record-setting phase of this heat streak will soon end, though the climate disruptions accompanying it are expected to persist.
June’s global temperature was the highest on record for the 13th consecutive month and marked the 12th month in a row where the world was 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial times, Copernicus reported on Monday.
A senior climate scientist at Copernicus, Nicolas Julien, highlighted the significance of the 1.5-degree temperature mark, noting, “It’s a stark warning that we are getting closer to this very important limit set by the Paris Agreement.” He emphasized the rapid pace at which global temperatures are increasing.
The 1.5-degree threshold, part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, is crucial, although Julien and other meteorologists believe it won’t be permanently crossed until there is a prolonged period of extreme heat, potentially lasting 20 to 30 years.
“This is more than a statistical oddity and it highlights a continuing shift in our climate,” stated Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo.
For June 2024, the global average temperature was 62 degrees Fahrenheit, 16.66 degrees Celsius, which is 1.2 degrees, 0.67 Celsius, above the 30-year average for the month, breaking the previous June record by a quarter of a degree, 0.14 degrees Celsius.
This makes it the third-hottest month recorded by Copernicus, which has data going back to 1940, surpassed only by July and August of the previous year.
Julien pointed out the severity of the situation, stating that records are not just being broken but “shattered by very substantial margins over the past 13 months.”
Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler, who was not involved in the report, commented, “For the rich and for right now, it’s an expensive inconvenience. For the poor it’s suffering. In the future, the amount of wealth you have to have to merely be inconvenienced will increase until most people are suffering.”
Even without consistently reaching the long-term 1.5-degree threshold, the effects of climate change are evident, with Julien noting the occurrence of extreme climate events such as floods, storms, droughts, and heat waves.
Regions particularly affected by June’s heat included southeast Europe, Turkey, eastern Canada, the western United States and Mexico, Brazil, northern Siberia, the Middle East, northern Africa, and western Antarctica.
In Pakistan, temperatures reached 117 degrees Fahrenheit, 47 degrees Celsius, necessitating medical treatment for thousands suffering from heatstroke.
Additionally, June marked the 15th consecutive month of record-breaking ocean temperatures, covering more than two-thirds of Earth’s surface, according to Copernicus data.
Julien and other meteorologists attribute most of this heat to the long-term effects of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, with the majority of trapped heat energy being absorbed by the oceans, which take longer to warm and cool.
El Niño and La Niña cycles also play a role, with El Niños typically causing global temperature spikes. The strong El Niño that began last year concluded in June.
Clean air regulations over Atlantic shipping routes, which reduce traditional air pollution particles like sulfur, also temporarily increased the rate of warming already caused by greenhouse gases, explained Tianle Yuan, a climate scientist with NASA and the University of Maryland Baltimore Campus.
Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Stripes and the Berkeley Earth climate-monitoring group, predicted on X that with all six months of 2024 experiencing record heat, there is “an approximately 95% chance that 2024 beats 2023 to be the warmest year since global surface temperature records began in the mid-1800s.”
While Copernicus has yet to calculate these odds, Julien noted that the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently estimated a 50% chance.
Despite the record heat, global daily average temperatures in late June and early July, although still high, were not as warm as last year. Julien suggested, “It is likely, I would say, that July 2024 will be colder than July 2023 and this streak will end,” but he acknowledged the uncertainty.
Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria, warned that current data indicate Earth is on a trajectory for 3 degrees Celsius of warming if emissions are not drastically reduced. He expressed concern that the end of the record hot months streak and the arrival of winter could lead to complacency.
“Our world is in crisis,” stated Andrea Dutton, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin. She pointed to the impact of extremely warm oceans fueling new, rapidly intensifying tropical storms, like Hurricane Beryl, and cautioned that each new temperature record increases the likelihood of climate change bringing crises closer to home.
Copernicus bases its data on billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft, and weather stations worldwide, which are then reanalyzed using computer simulations.
Other agencies, including NOAA and NASA, also produce monthly climate reports, though their processes take longer, cover more extended periods, and do not rely on computer simulations.
