China, Japan record hottest summer temperatures

BEIJING: The Chinese weather service said that much of the country logged August as the hottest on record last month as Japanese authorities revealed that 2024 had been the country's warmest summer since records have begun. 

China is the leading emitter of the greenhouse gas emissions scientists say are driving global climate change.

Beijing has pledged to bring planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions to a peak by 2030 and to net zero by 2060.

Its weather service said in an article published Sunday that average air temperatures last month in eight provinces, regions and cities "ranked the hottest for the same period" since records began.

They included the megacity of Shanghai, the provinces of Jiangsu, Hebei, Hainan, Jilin, Liaoning and Shandong as well as the northwest region of Xinjiang, the weather service said.

A further five provinces chalked up their second-hottest August, while seven more endured their third-hottest.

"Looking back at the past month, most parts of China have experienced a hotter summer than in previous years," the weather service said.

The major population centres of Shanghai, Hangzhou and Chongqing also saw more "high temperature days" — typically declared when the mercury breaches 35°C (95°F) — than in any August since records began.

Although the heat is expected to recede across much of the north as autumn begins, "it is still too early to end completely", the weather service said.

Climate scientists have already predicted that 2024 will be the hottest year on record for the Earth because of a warming planet.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said July was the second warmest on record books going back to 1940, only slightly cooler than July 2023.

Extreme heat has seared much of East Asia this summer, with Asian neighbour Japan saying on Monday that its long-term average temperature between June and August was 1.76°C above the standard value, the joint highest since statistics started being kept in 1898.

Rising global temperatures also make extreme weather more frequent and intense, and China has seen a summer of extreme weather, from heatwaves across much of the north and west to devastating floods in central and southern regions.

Chinese weather authorities said July was the country's hottest month since records began, state media reported, as extreme temperatures persist across large parts of the globe.

Last month was "the hottest July since complete observations began in 1961, and the hottest single month in the history of observation", state broadcaster CCTV said, citing weather authorities.

The average air temperature in China last month was 23.21°C (73.78°F), exceeding the previous record of 23.17°C in 2017, CCTV reported the weather authorities as saying.