Summer of 2024 was world’s hottest on record, says EU monitor

BRUSSELS: The world is emerging from its warmest northern hemisphere summer since records began, the European Union’s climate change monitoring service said on Friday, as global warming continues to intensify.

The boreal summer of June to August this year blew past last summer to become the world’s warmest, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in a monthly bulletin.

The exceptional heat increases the likelihood that 2024 will outrank 2023 as the planet’s warmest on record.

“During the past three months of 2024, the globe has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day on record, and the hottest boreal summer on record,” said C3S deputy director Samantha Burgess.

Unless countries urgently reduce their planet-heating emissions, extreme weather “will only become more intense”, she said. Greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels are the main cause of climate change.

The planet’s changed climate continued to fuel disasters this summer. In Sudan, flooding from heavy rains last month affected more than 300,000 people and brought cholera to the war-torn country.