On Monday, the world reached a new milestone. July 3, 2023, was Earth’s hottest day on record. Averaged across the whole planet, and all 24 hours, the composite surface temperature was 17.01 degrees Celsius, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute, which compiles and assesses data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in its Climate Reanalyzer tool.
A reading in the 17s might not sound too sweaty, but keep in mind that includes nighttime temperatures, Arctic and Antarctic readings, ocean surface temperature, and also it is winter here. For the Earth, overall, 17.01C is hot. On Monday, it was the hottest that official monitoring had captured since satellite record-keeping began nearly 50 years ago. Likely it was the hottest day for our planet in a lot longer than that (possibly the hottest day since the last interglacial period 125,000 years ago — if you include data from sources like tree rings and ice cores).
That 17.01C average beat the prior record of 16.92C. which was first set in August 2016, and matched in July 2022. The previous record lasted for nearly seven years. Monday’s record lasted for a day.
Because, you see, according to the same University of Maine climate tracking tool, Tuesday was even hotter than Monday’s hottest day. Tuesday was the hottest-er at 17.18C.
Neither daily record has been confirmed by NOAA, which analyses its own data on a monthly basis, as agency spokesperson Susan Buchanan told Gizmodo via email. The Climate Change Institute’s interpretation still needs to be formally approved. However, the Climate Reanalyzer is a trusted tool among climate researchers and federal agencies, and both records are likely to be validated. Deke Arndt, director of NOAA’s National Centre for Environmental Information, told the Associated Press that NOAA will consider the University of Maine figures in its own calculations.
Regardless of any of the bureaucratic specifics here, Earth’s recent surface temperatures are alarming. Early data indicates that the entire month of June was the hottest ever recorded, by a wide margin. 2023 is well on its way to beating the hottest year on record. Nations and cities worldwide are enduring their own, regional and local heat records.
North Africa and the Middle East have been roasting as temperatures rose to nearly 50C this past week. Hundreds of people are estimated to have died from heat-related causes during the annual Islamic Hajj pilgrimage at the end of June. Repeat heatwaves have battered China. Most recently, Beijing suffered through nine consecutive days above 35C, per AP. Spain and other European countries are in the throes of their own, newly named, heatwaves. In the southern half of the U.S., from California to the East Coast, highs have been above 32C and well into the triple digits for Texas and the Southwest.
Even Antarctica, which is in its winter, is clocking some anomalously high temps. Ukraine’s Vernadsky Research Base recorded a record-breaking, positively balmy 8.7C this week, according to Reuters.
Likely, this year’s record-busting season is far from finished. Global temperature tends to peak at the end of July, not the beginning. Monday and Tuesday were back-to-back records. But today, tomorrow, and the day after that are all contenders in the never-ending contest that is Earth’s climate.
Human-caused climate change is undoubtedly a major factor in all of the recent temperature milestones. Past research has shown that every single heatwave is now more intense because of climate change. This year’s El Niño is also a significant contributor, as the global weather pattern brings serious ocean warming and generally warmer temps.
At some point, El Niño will end, and we’ll oscillate back into the opposite, La Niña pattern. But then the phenomenon will return, and if we haven’t solved climate change by that point, we’re in for another, even hotter year. People, wildlife, and ecosystems will suffer the consequences — we, they, and everything already are.
The good news, as always: We already know how to stop it. It’s simple, really. We just need to transition away from fossil fuels. Unless and until humans seriously reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we produce, the records will keep coming and they won’t stop coming.