Extract from ABC News
Earth has sweltered through its hottest northern-hemisphere summer ever measured, with a record-warm August capping a season of brutal and deadly temperatures, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
Key points:
- August was about 1.5C warmer than pre-industrial averages, the threshold central to the Paris climate change agreement
- It was also the second-hottest month ever recorded, coming in only behind July 2023
- Scientists say the warming is due to human-caused climate change from burning fossil fuels, combined with El Niño
Last month was not only the hottest August scientists ever recorded by far with modern equipment, it was also the second-hottest month ever measured, behind only July 2023, the WMO and the European climate service Copernicus announced Wednesday.
That made August the third straight month in a row to set such a record, following the hottest ever June and July.
August was about 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial averages, the limit 196 countries agreed to pursue in the Paris international climate change agreement in 2015, though scientists are more concerned about rises in temperatures over decades.
The world's oceans — more than 70 per cent of the Earth's surface — were at their hottest ever recorded, nearly 21C on average, and have set high temperature marks for three consecutive months, the WMO and Copernicus said.
"The dog days of summer are not just barking, they are biting," United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. "Climate breakdown has begun."
So far, 2023 is the second-hottest year on record, behind 2016, according to Copernicus.
Scientists blame human-caused climate change resulting from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, with an extra push from a natural El Niño, which is a temporary warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide.
Usually an El Niño, which started earlier this year, adds extra heat to global temperatures, but more so in its second year.
Climatologist Andrew Weaver said the numbers announced by the WMO and Copernicus come as no surprise.
He said governments have not appeared to take the issue of global warming seriously enough, and expressed concern that the public will just forget the issue when temperatures fall again.
"It's time for global leaders to start telling the truth," said Dr Weaver, a professor at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria in Canada.
"We will not limit warming to 1.5C; we will not limit warming to 2.0C. It's all hands on deck now to prevent 3.0C global warming — a level of warming that will wreak havoc worldwide."
Copernicus, a division of the European Union's space program, has records going back to 1940, but in the United Kingdom and the United States, global records go back to the mid-1800s — and those weather and science agencies are expected to soon report that the summer was a record-breaker.
"What we are observing — not only new extremes but the persistence of these record-breaking conditions, and the impacts these have on both people and planet — are a clear consequence of the warming of the climate system," Copernicus climate change service director Carlo Buontempo said.
So far, daily September temperatures are higher than what has been recorded before for this time of year, according to the University of Maine's Climate Reanalyzer.
AP/Reuters
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