The European Union’s climate monitor has said Monday was the world’s hottest day on record after it inched past Sunday’s high as swaths of Europe, Asia and North America experienced blistering temperatures.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Wednesday that the global average surface air temperature on July 22 rose to 17.15 degrees Celsius (62.9 degrees Fahrenheit) – or 0.06 degrees Celsius higher than the record set just a day earlier.
C3S has been tracking such patterns since 1940.
“This is exactly what climate science told us would happen if the world continued burning coal, oil and gas,” Joyce Kimutai, a climate scientist from Imperial College London, told the AFP news agency.
“And it will continue getting hotter until we stop burning fossil fuels and reach net zero emissions.” The record had last been set for four consecutive days in early July 2023. Before that, the hottest day was in August 2016.
In recent days, cities in Japan, Indonesia and China have registered record heat. (Agencies)
