Although the first days of July were nice, of course different depending on the country, there have been no record high temperatures in Iceland this summer.
But globally, the average temperature record fell one after another.
The news agency Reuters reported that, according to the calculations of the American Climate Prediction Agency, the average temperature on the globe had been measured at 17.01 degrees on Monday, July 3.
The previous record was from August 2016, when the highest average temperature on Earth was 16.92 degrees.
The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter then reported that as early as July 4th the average temperature had been calculated at 17.18 and on July 6th the record was broken again and was then calculated at 17.23.
That’s more than a full degree warmer than the average between 1979 and 2000.
Climate change out of control
Michael Tjernström, professor of meteorology at Stockholm University, says in an interview with Dagens Nyheter:
“It’s interesting that this should be a global record, and it’s worse than very high temperature readings several days in a row in individual areas, as a heat wave in one place usually coincides with colder weather in some other area.
When the average temperature of the entire globe, including the southern hemisphere where it is now winter, it tells us a lot more.”
The British newspaper The Guardian quoted the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, as saying that climate change is now out of control. He actually said this before the latest record was set and based on the fact that the last seven days up to July 5 had been the hottest week in history.
Reuters reports that many continents are experiencing unusually high temperatures.
Prolonged heat wave in China
In China, there has been a prolonged heat wave and the temperature has exceeded 35 degrees, and in many countries in North Africa the temperature has approached 50 degrees.
Friederike Otto, who studies climate and environmental change at Imperial College London, says the new temperature records are cause for concern.
“This is not a turning point we welcome. This is a death sentence for people and ecosystems,” she tells the Reuters news agency.
El Niño
The same news agency reports the opinion of the scientists that the reasons for the temperature estimate are climate change together with the effect of the weather phenomenon El Ninjo, but El Ninjo has an effect on the rise in temperature.
El Ninjo has natural causes and appears on average every seven years, when surface waters in some parts of the Pacific Ocean are unusually warm.
Climate expert Zeke Hausfather of Berkeley Earth in California believes the new temperature records are just the first of many.
“Unfortunately, this appears to be only the beginning of a series of new temperature records. Rising greenhouse gas emissions alongside El Ninjo are pushing temperatures to new heights,” Reuters news agency quoted him as saying.
