Climate change, El Nino drive hottest June on record

PARIS: The world saw its hottest June on record last month, the EU´s climate monitoring service said on Thursday, as climate change and the El Nino weather pattern looked likely to drive another scorching northern summer.

The EU monitor Copernicus also said preliminary data showed on Tuesday was the hottest day ever recorded -- beating the record set only the day before.

It´s the latest in a series of records halfway through a year that has already seen a drought in Spain and fierce heat waves in China as well the United States.

“The month was the warmest June globally at just over 0.5 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average, exceeding June 2019 -- the previous record -- by a substantial margin,” the EU monitor said in a statement from its C3S climate unit.

Temperatures reached June records across northwest Europe while parts of Canada, the United States, Mexico, Asia and eastern Australia “were significantly warmer than normal”, Copernicus noted. On the other hand it was cooler than normal in western Australia, the western United States and western Russia, it said.

The tumbling records reflect the impact of global warming driven by greenhouse gases released from human activity. Copernicus told AFP preliminary data showed a global average temperature of 17.03 C on Tuesday, beating another record of 16.88 C already set on Monday.

For June, Copernicus noted that sea surface temperatures were higher globally than any previous June on record, with “extreme marine heat waves” around Ireland, Britain and the Baltic.

Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest extent for June since satellite observations began, at 17 percent below average.

C3S scientist Julien Nicolas told AFP the June record was driven largely by “very warm ocean surface temperatures” in the Pacific and Atlantic due to El Nino, a periodic warming phenomenon.

Marine heatwaves struck the Atlantic and low winds meant the warm surface did not mix with colder water deeper down.

“On top of that is this warming trend of the ocean absorbing 90 percent of heat released by human activity,” he added.

The global temperature was 0.53 C above the 30-year average at an average of 16.51C (61.72 degrees Fahrenheit), he calculated. “June 2023 is way above the others. This is the kind of anomaly we are not used to,” Nicolas said.