Extract from ABC News
Scientists told us it was close.
And now we have data suggesting the record for the hottest day ever globally has been broken two days in a row.
Key points:
- Data from US scientists suggests this Tuesday was the world's hottest day on record
- Experts say heat records will continue to topple without urgent action on climate change
- Swathes of the northern hemisphere are currently experiencing heatwaves and record temperatures
The average global temperature on Monday, July, 3 hit 17.01 degrees Celsius, according to data from the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), topping the previous August 2016 record of 16.92 degrees.
"This is not a milestone we should be celebrating — it's a death sentence for people and ecosystems," said climate scientist Friederike Otto, of Imperial College London's Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment.
"Worryingly, it won't be the hottest day for a long time."
She was right.
NCEP data showed 24 hours later that Tuesday, July 4, hit an average global temperature of 17.18C.
The news, while concerning, isn't exactly a surprise, with other heat records falling and climate disasters increasingly wreaking havoc across the globe.
The World Meteorological Organization — the United Nations (UN) agency specialising in climate and weather — has declared the 2023 El Niño underway, which could see more temperature records tumble over the next 12 months.
Where did the data come from?
The data is based on analysis of NCEP figures by scientists at the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute, and was compiled from a range of land and sea observations from across the world.
The hottest day "record" remains unofficial, having yet to be corroborated by other measurements.
But Ailie Gallant, an associate professor at Monash University's School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, said whether this week really was a record breaker ultimately didn't matter.
"The point is that we are getting a lot more of these very hot days. We're getting a lot more heat waves and ... elevated temperatures," she said.
"This is the new norm. We will continue to get hotter and hotter weather until greenhouse gas emissions are abated and we start to turn around climate change."
What's pushing up temperatures?
Many countries across the globe are sweltering through heatwaves.
Temperatures in China have been pushing above 35C, while northern African nations have been suffering under 50C heat.
Southern parts of the US have been baking, while Antarctica (which is currently in winter) has also registered above-average temperatures.
"It's just happening everywhere," Melbourne Climate Futures deputy director Kathryn Bowen told ABC Radio Melbourne.
"These records will just continue to be broken and so it's really now time to look at these with the urgency that it demands to make sure that we're developing the solutions and the responses that make sense to everyone."
Dr Gallant said it was not unusual to have consecutive days of high temperatures because weather systems usually persisted for several days.
"Multiple heatwaves across the world, which tend to hang around for days at a time, combined with the ocean venting a lot of heat because of the likely El Niño, is creating perfect conditions for record-breaking temperatures," she said.
In May, the United Nations warned global temperatures were set to break records in the next five years, with a 98 per cent chance of one being the warmest ever recorded.
The warmest 10 years on record have all happened since 2005, which scientists say is largely due to climate change caused by human activity.
What does it mean for Australia?
Rapidly increasing global temperatures combined with an El Niño would be bad news for Australia over the next 12 months.
The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) is yet to formally pull the trigger on an El Niño declaration, holding its status at one level below a full declaration, as it has different metrics to overseas agencies.
An El Niño would supercharge an already volatile and warming climate in Australia, Professor Bowen said.
"We're going to be looking at potentially a much hotter and drier summer," she said.
That means increased risk of drought, heatwaves, bushfires and coral bleaching.
"The widespread heat in the northern hemisphere hasn't fully reached us yet in the Southern hemisphere, but over the coming years, it will as our massive oceans gradually warm up," said Steven Sherwood, a professor at the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre.
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