Now that July’s sizzling numbers are all in, the European climate monitoring organisation has made it official: July 2023 was Earth’s hottest month on record by a wide margin.
July’s global average temperature of 16.95 degrees was a third of a degree higher than the previous record set in 2019, Copernicus Climate Change Service, a division of the European Union’s space program, announced on Tuesday.

Normally global temperature records are broken by hundredths or a tenth of a degree, so this margin is unusual.

Normally global temperature records are broken by hundredths or a tenth of a degree, so this margin is unusual. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

“These records have dire consequences for both people and the planet exposed to ever more frequent and intense extreme events,” said Copernicus deputy director Samantha Burgess.

There have been deadly heat waves in the south-western United States and Mexico, Europe and Asia. Scientific quick studies put the blame on human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.

Days in July have been hotter than previously recorded from July 2 on. It’s been so extra warm that Copernicus and the World Meteorological Organisation made the unusual early announcement that it was likely the hottest month days before it ended. Tuesday’s calculations made it official.

The month was 1.5 degrees warmer than pre-industrial times. In 2015, the nations of the world agreed to try to prevent long-term warming — not individual months or even years, but decades — that is 1.5 degrees warmer than pre-industrial times.

Days in July have been hotter than previously recorded from July 2 on. (AP Photo/Paul White, File)

Last month was so hot, it was 0.7 degrees Celsius hotter than the average July from 1991 to 2020, Copernicus said. The worlds oceans were half a degree warmer than the previous 30 years and the North Atlantic was 1.05 degrees hotter than average.

Antarctica set record lows for sea ice, 15 per cent below average for this time of year.

Copernicus’ records go back to 1940. That temperature would be hotter than any month the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has recorded and its records go back to 1850. But scientists say it’s actually the hottest in a far longer time period.

“It’s a stunning record and makes it quite clearly the warmest month on Earth in 10,000 years,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research in Germany. He wasn’t part of the Copernicus team.

Copernicus’ records go back to 1940. That temperature would be hotter than any month the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has recorded and its records go back to 1850. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru, File)

Rahmstorf cited studies that use tree rings and other proxies that show present times are the warmest since the beginning of the Holocene Epoch, about 10,000 years ago.

And before the Holocene started there was an ice age, so it would be logical to even say this is the warmest record for 120,000 years, he said.

“We should not care about July because it’s a record, but because it won’t be a record for long,” said Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto.

“It’s an indicator of how much we have changed the climate. We are living in a very different world, one that our societies are not adapted to live in very well.”

The Caspian Sea

‘Staggering’ volume of water gone from world’s largest lakes

Sign up here to receive our daily newsletters and breaking news alerts, sent straight to your inbox.
You May Also Like

‘Love the idea of him being with someone with a degenerating brain. Hilarious’: What Earl Spencer’s bitter wife allegedly wrote about his new love in poisonous diary

By MARK HOOKHAM Published: 18:30 EDT, 5 April 2025 | Updated: 20:29…

Global car giant stops shipments to the US over Trump tariffs

The maker of Jaguar and Land Rover cars is pausing shipments to…

Why Titans, Shedeur Sanders agreed to cancel private workout weeks before NFL draft

The Titans have seen enough. Tennessee, which owns the No. 1 pick…

Barefoot Investor sounds alarm against home loan change that will make it even harder to buy a house

By MAX ALDRED FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA Published: 22:43 EDT, 5 April…