Extract from ABC News
By Heloise Vyas
The northern hemisphere sweltered through its hotter summer on record this year, driven in large part by climate change. (Reuters: Pilar Olivares)
While Australia is yet to enter its hottest three months of the year, the northern half of the world just emerged from what has been the planet's warmest summer on record.
Temperatures in the northern hemisphere from June to August became the highest on average in 84 years, extending what were already six consecutive record-setting months in the first half of 2024.
Data published in a monthly bulletin by the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) on Friday also showed that the global average temperature for the year from September 2023 to August 2024 was the highest on record for any 12-month period, at 0.76 degrees Celsius above the 1991–2020 average and 1.64C above the 1850–1900 pre-industrial average.
Global surface air temperature anomalies. (Copernicus Climate Change Service)
Culminating in August, the figures reflect 14 straight months for which the average anomaly has been 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Each of these months barring July were the hottest since records began.
"During the past three months of 2024, the globe has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day on record, and the hottest boreal summer on record," deputy director of C3S Samantha Burgess said.
"This string of record temperatures is increasing the likelihood of 2024 being the hottest year on record.
"The temperature-related extreme events witnessed this summer will only become more intense, with more devastating consequences for people and the planet unless we take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
So unless the anomaly was to drop by at least 0.30C in the next three months — which the C3S notes has never happened in the history of its dataset — 2024 will outrank 2023 as the world's warmest year on record.
How was the high heat by region?
The C3S data notes August 2024 and August 2023 as the joint-warmest August globally — even in the southern hemisphere, where it is still winter — with an average temperature of 16.82C.
Europe underwent its hottest summer on record, and the second-warmest August on record after 2022.
A tourist poses in front of the Caryatids in Greece, as a wildfire burns amid high temperatures in Athens in July. (Reuters: Alkis Konstantinidis)
Outside Europe, temperatures were most above average over eastern Antarctica, Texas, Mexico, Canada, north-east Africa, Iran, China, Japan and Australia, according to the C3S.
At least 63 countries — mostly in Africa and South America — were previously said to have had their warmest national average June on record.
However, the regions of far-eastern Russia and Alaska, the United States' east coast, southern South America, Pakistan and the Sahel in central-west Africa recorded below-average temperatures.
How hot has Australia been?
It was a sweltering August even for Australia, with unseasonal heat breaking the country's winter heat records.
Western Australia's Kimberley region recorded the national maximum of 41.6C on August 26, surpassing the old winter high of 41.2C at West Roebuck in August 2020.
Several other weather stations in the Northern Territory and WA also saw their respective winter heat records broken. Late-winter heat or early-spring heat has occurred sometimes in the past, but never at the intensity this year.
And this above-average heat only looks to persist through spring, firming up this year's chances of being the hottest on record.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology's climate outlook for October to December, almost every region of Australia is two to four times more likely to experience unusually warm temperatures and clock in extreme heat — the highest 20th percentile of the historical range.
Additionally, nearly every part of the country is also likely to exceed the median maximum temperature for October to December by 80 per cent.
While Australia's weather patterns are strongly influenced by natural climate drivers, human-induced climate change is progressively warming its temperatures, like in much of the world.
According to national science agency CSIRO, Australia has warmed, on average, by 1.47 ± 0.24C since national records began in 1910.
What's behind the unusually hot 2024 summer?
Summer in the northern hemisphere has progressively been warmer since 2020. (Copernicus Climate Change Service)
There are a number of natural phenomena that influence weather patterns and subsequently temperatures of the air and sea surface, including the Indian Ocean Dipole, radiation from the sun, events like El Niño and La Niña, and other oscillations.
El Niño, which warms the surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean, contributed to pushing temperatures to record highs earlier in the year.
But these recent successive months of record-breaking temperatures indicate a continuing shift in the world's climate, and show that the figures are not just a statistical oddity.
The greenhouse effect is the main driver of climate change, most of which is caused by the production of carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels.
Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Cape Cod, told AP there had been a deluge of extreme weather: of heat, floods, wildfires and high winds that were violent and dangerous.
"Like people living in a war zone with the constant thumping of bombs and clatter of guns, we are becoming deaf to what should be alarm bells and air-raid sirens," she said.
The planet's changed climate fuelled many disasters in the 2024 summer, and also saw near-record-high ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, and glacier retreats in Arctic and Antarctic seas.
A drone view shows wildfires in an area of Brazil's capital. (Reuters: Adriano Machado)
Areas in the south and east of Europe experienced drought and wildfires, while western Russia and Türkiye saw above-average precipitation, in some cases leading to floods and damage, the C3S report said.
Monsoon rains in the Indian subcontinent and Cyclone Asna, flooding from heavy rains in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, Typhoon Shanshan in Japan and wildfires in Canada, Siberia and Brazil are among other disasters linked to climate change this year.
Scientists have confirmed climate change is driving a severe ongoing drought on the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia, and it intensified Typhoon Gaemi, which tore through the Philippines, Taiwan and China in July, leaving more than 100 people dead.
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