Even before July ended, scientists calculated it will be the hottest globally on record and likely the warmest human civilization has seen.
The World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service on July 27 proclaimed July’s heat is beyond record-smashing. They said Earth’s temperature has been temporarily passing over a key warming threshold : the internationally accepted goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Temperatures were 1.5 degrees warmer than preindustrial times for a record 16 days in July as of July 27, but the Paris climate accord aims to keep the 20- or 30-year global temperature average to 1.5 degrees. A few days of temporarily beating that threshold have happened before, but never in July.
July had been so off-the-charts hot, with heat waves blistering three continents ― North America, Europe and Asia ― that researchers said a record was inevitable.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pointed to the calculations and urged world leaders, in particular of rich nations, to do more to reduce emissionsof heat-trapping gases.
“Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning,” Guterres told reporters in a New York briefing. “The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.”(AP)
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