The recently ended month turned out to be the hottest June on record. It broke the record set last year, and it may well happen that records will continue to be broken despite the fact that ocean currents will help cool the planet.
Hot June
The European climate change tracking service Copernicus reported that June 2024 set another temperature record. The global temperature on Earth (i.e., the average temperature measured at different points during the day) was higher than in any sixth month of the year in the history of observations.
It started last year, when June 2023 was the hottest June on record. Then there was July, which was the hottest on a global scale. Therefore, the temperature record set then is generally the highest in terms of global temperature recorded for the entire period of observation.
Since then, each subsequent month has been a record-breaking one compared to previous years. That is, June 2024 was 13th in the line of the hottest months in a row. Scientists believe that even if this sequence is interrupted, it still indicates that the planet’s heating is becoming uncontrollable.
What to expect next
A significant contribution to the 13-month record streak was made by El Niño, which was observed at the end of 2023. This phenomenon consists in the rise of a warm current in the Pacific Ocean, which heats the air near the surface. As a result, global temperatures are rising without any human influence.
However, El Niño is already over. Soon, its opposite, the cold La Niña current, should appear. But the temperature on the planet is still breaking record after record. India, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Mexico are suffering incredibly from the heat. At the same time, Kenya, China, Afghanistan, and Brazil are experiencing devastating downpours.
This fact is also related to temperature, as precipitation is formed from water evaporating from the ocean surface. And its temperature has remained record high for 15 months. As for global air temperature, over the past 12 months it has been on average 1.64°C higher than pre-industrial levels.
And this is despite the fact that in 2015 in Paris, representatives of 192 countries agreed that it should not be allowed to rise by more than 1.5°C by 2050. Scientists point out that the observed indicators are still too short-term to say that the agreement is not being implemented. However, the signs are truly alarming and the chance of climate catastrophe is increasing all the time.
According to phys.org
