Global temperatures hit their highest on record on Sunday, according to preliminary data from Europe’s biggest climate monitor, another worrying sign that human-made climate change is pushing the planet into dangerous new territory.
According to results from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the global average temperature on July 21 was 17.09 degrees Celsius (62.76 degrees Fahrenheit), breaking the record set just last year. This historic day comes on the heels of 13 consecutive months of unprecedented temperatures, making it the hottest year scientists have ever recorded.
“We are truly in uncharted territory,” Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said in a statement, “and as the climate continues to warm, records will undoubtedly be broken in the coming months and years.”
Copernicus researchers noted that while Sunday was only slightly warmer than the world’s hottest day to date, it was unusually hotter than any day before. Prior to July 2023, the Earth’s record for average daily temperature was 16.8 degrees Celsius (62.24 degrees Fahrenheit), set in August 2016. But over the past year, the world has had 57 days that surpassed that old record.
“What’s really surprising is how big the difference is between the temperatures over the last 13 months and the previous temperature record,” Buontempo said.
Scientists have only started tracking global temperatures in the past few centuries, but there’s good reason to believe that Sunday was the hottest day on Earth since the start of the last ice age more than 100,000 years ago. The work of paleoclimatologists, who use tree rings, ice cores, lake sediments and other ancient sources to understand past environments, suggests that the recent heat was unlikely during the last geological period.
Record heat was felt on nearly every continent on Sunday. Vast swathes of Asia sweltered during scorching days and dangerously hot nights. Temperatures reached triple digits in the western United States, sparking out-of-control wildfires. Most of Antarctica was 12 degrees Celsius (22 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than normal, according to Copernicus data.
According to the National Centers for Environmental Information, 550 locations around the world set new daytime record high temperatures in the past seven days alone.
The relentless heat has scientists increasingly confident that this year could be even hotter than last: In an analysis published last week, researchers at climate science nonprofit Berkeley Earth estimated there is a 92 percent chance that a new annual warmest record will be broken in 2024. This year’s average temperature is virtually certain to be more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, exceeding what scientists consider to be the threshold for acceptable warming.
“It’s alarming but not surprising that we’re seeing record temperatures this year,” Andrew Pershing, vice president of science at the nonprofit Climate Central, said in an email. “As we continue to release carbon pollutants into the atmosphere, global temperatures will continue to rise.”
