(Washington) The month of July 2023 will probably be the hottest for several “hundreds, if not thousands of years” around the world, NASA’s chief climatologist said Thursday.
Several heat records have already been shattered in July, according to two tools from the European Union and the University of Maine in the United States, which combine ground and satellite data to create models that generate preliminary estimates.
While the two tools differ slightly from each other, the rising temperature trends are unmistakable and will likely be reflected in future monthly reports from U.S. agencies, with more consolidated data, Gavin Schmidt, NASA’s chief climatologist, said in an exchange with reporters.
On Wednesday, the European observatory Copernicus had already warned that the world was on the way to experiencing its hottest month of July since the start of measurements, after an already record month of June.
We are seeing unprecedented changes across the world.
Gavin Schmidt, NASA’s chief climatologist
“The heat waves in the United States, Europe, and China are exploding records,” he added.
Especially since they cannot be attributed solely to the El Niño phenomenon, “which has only just arrived”.
El Niño is a cyclical weather phenomenon that originates in the Pacific Ocean and causes global temperatures to rise, accompanied by droughts in some parts of the world and heavy rains in others.
Although El Niño plays a small role in current observations, “we’ve seen sea surface temperature records broken, even outside the tropics, for several months now,” said Gavin Schmidt.
“And we expect that to continue,” added the climatologist, “because we continue to emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”
Current phenomena increase the likelihood that 2023 will be the hottest year on record. Such a probability is currently “50-50” according to the calculations of Gavin Schmidt. But other scientists suggest a probability of up to 80%, he said.
“We expect 2024 to be an even warmer year, as we will start it with the El Niño phenomenon which is building up at the moment, and which will peak towards the end of this year,” said Gavin Schmidt.