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The data, released Wednesday by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a European Union institution that provides information about the past, present, and future climate, caused alarm among some experts.
Icebergs near Ilulissat, Greenland. Ulrik Pedersen / NurPhoto via Getty Images
By Derrick Bryson Taylor, New York Times Service
updated on July 25, 2024 | 8:07 AM
Monday was most likely the hottest day ever recorded on Earth, with a global average of about 62.87 degrees Fahrenheit, or 17.15 degrees Celsius, preliminary data showed — beating a record that had been set just one day before.
The data, released Wednesday by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a European Union institution that provides information about the past, present and future climate, caused alarm among some experts.
Earlier this week, the service announced that Sunday had set a record, with a global average of about 62.76 degrees Fahrenheit, or 17.09 degrees Celsius. A day later it announced that Monday was the hottest day since at least 1940, when records began.
Before this week’s back-to-back records, the previous record, 62.74 degrees Fahrenheit, or 17.08 degrees Celsius, was set last year, on July 6, besting a record that stood since 2016.
Since Sunday’s and Monday’s temperatures were averages, some portions of the globe felt that extra heat more strongly, like parts of the Western United States where an excessive heat warning has been in place for days and is expected to continue for much of the week.
“What is truly staggering is how large the difference is between the temperature of the last 13 months and the previous temperature records,” Carlo Buontempo, the director of the service, said in a news release announcing Sunday’s record. “We are now in truly uncharted territory and as the climate keeps warming, we are bound to see new records being broken in future months and years.”
Buontempo said in a statement on Wednesday that data showed there may be slightly lower temperatures in the next few days.
At a closer look, 2023 and 2024 have seen annual highs significantly above those recorded in previous years, the agency said. Another key sign of global warming was that the 10 years with the highest daily average temperatures are the last 10 years, 2015 to 2024.
While researchers said Sunday’s record was not totally unexpected, as global temperatures typically reach their peak this time of year, several factors are contributing to their increase, including seasonal patterns in the Northern Hemisphere that drive worldwide temperatures and above-average temperatures over large parts of Antarctica.
Heat waves are becoming more severe and prolonged because of the global climate crisis, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.
As humans continue adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, experts say, record-breaking heat will become even more common, as will extreme weather events like droughts,