New world record: July 3 registers as the hottest day ever

NEW DELHI: On July 3, 2023, the world crossed another milestone with the average global temperature reaching 17.01 degrees Celsius, surpassing the August 2016 record of 16.92 degrees Celsius, according to data from the US National Centres for Environmental Prediction.

Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in Climate Science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, said, “This is not a milestone we should be celebrating; it’s a death sentence for people and ecosystems. And worryingly, it won’t be the hottest day for a long time.”

He further added, “With El Niño developing, the world will likely break this record again in the coming months. We absolutely need to stop burning fossil fuels.”

Scientists said climate change combined with an emerging El Nino pattern was to blame.

“Unfortunately, it promises to only be the first in a series of new records set this year as increasing emissions of [carbon dioxide] and greenhouse gasses coupled with a growing El Nino event push temperatures to new highs,” said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth.

Adding to it, he said, “June was the warmest June ever recorded by a large margin, and July is on track to be the warmest July on record as well. Based on the first six months of the year, it looks increasingly likely that 2023 will end up as the overall warmest year on record.”

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said in an update on May 17, 2023, that there was a 66 per cent likelihood of exceeding the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold in at least one year between 2023 and 2027.

An analysis by scientists from NOAA’s National Centres for Environmental Information (NCEI) showed that 2022 was the sixth warmest year on record since 1880.

“Loss and damage from human-induced climate change have arrived throughout the world with the hottest day ever. Expect many hottest days in the future,” Saleemul Haq, Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), Independent University, Bangladesh, said in an emailed statement.