June 2023 is the hottest month on record, with an average temperature of 16.51°C, 0.53°C above the previous record, dating from 2019.
The summer of 2023 looks like a season of worrying temperature records. I’European climate change observatory, Copernicus, announced Thursday, July 6, that the month of June had been the hottest ever recorded on a global scale. The average global temperature was 16.51°C over the month, 0.53°C above the average for the previous three decades. The previous record, set in June 2019, was “only” 0.37°C above these normals.
This trend continues in July. With an average of 17.03 degrees, Tuesday was the hottest day ever measured globally, all months combined, Copernicus confirmed based on preliminary measurements. Already on Monday, a first record had already been broken, with 16.88 degrees over the entire globe (land and sea combined). Here’s why these worrying records were broken.
Because the temperatures are high on the surface of the oceans
June’s global temperature record “is largely due to very high ocean surface temperatures”which covers more than 70% of the globe, explains Julien Nicolas, scientist for Copernicus, to AFP. “One of the factors is the lower wind speeds in large areas of the North Atlantic”due to an Azores anticyclone, measured as “the weakest for a month of June since 1940”which reduced the mixing of surface waters and therefore their cooling.
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Sea temperatures had already reached record highs in May in the Pacific Ocean. In June, the North Atlantic also experienced sea heat waves, “which have surprised many people by reaching truly unprecedented levels”according to the expert.
“Extreme sea heat waves” were also measured in the Baltic Sea, as well as around Ireland and Great Britain, which already confirmed its record month of June a few days ago, again very clearly above the previous one. And “on top of that, there is the warming trend of the oceans, which absorb 90% of the heat produced by human activity”adds Julien Nicolas.
Because the El Niño weather phenomenon has begun
This increase in ocean surface temperatures is partly the result of the onset of El Niño. This climatic phenomenon occurs cyclically, but irregularly, every three to seven years, and its episodes last nine to twelve months, details the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). He also results in climatic disasters, in particular dry spells and above-normal rainfall.
El Niño, which will continue throughout the year at an intensity “at least moderate”according to the WMO, should continue to fuel warming temperatures in the coming months. “The arrival of El Niño will dramatically increase the likelihood of breaking temperature records and triggering more extreme heat in many parts of the world and in the oceans”warned Tuesday the secretary general of the UN agency, Petteri Taalas, in the bulletin of the organization.
Because human activities warm the Earth
Beyond this meteorological factor, these temperature records broken on the surface of the Earth are the manifestation of global warming linked to human activities. THE Humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, as evidenced by data from the Our World in Data platform, piloted by the British University of Oxford.
The situation is alarming and proves that “climate change is out of control”warned Thursday the Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres. “If we continue to postpone the necessary measures [pour réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre], we are heading towards a catastrophic situation”he warned.
If these temperature increases are worrying, they do not surprise scientists. Chloé Maréchal, paleoclimatologist at the geology laboratory of the University of Lyon, notes that this phenomenon is “striking and has no equivalent compared to past situations”. He “is part of something quite logical”due to the “increase in man-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere”, she explains on BFMTV. According to the academic, this rise in the thermometer is “completely consistent with the climate models that have been running for ten years”.
The situation is not about to get better, confirm the conclusions of the sixth IPCC report, published in March, which figures the rise in temperatures attributed to human activities at 1.07°C, between 2010 and 2019. “Current trends are not at all compatible with the stabilization of warming, which would ensure a livable and equitable world. Efforts that have been made, but they do not reach the sufficient scale for a sufficiently rapid decline in greenhouse gas emissions”alerted climatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte in March in an interview with franceinfo.
The conditions are thus met for the year 2016, “the warmest year on record due to a very strong El Niño episode and human-induced warming due to greenhouse gases”recalls the WMO, will happen again in 2023.