Summer 2024 beats world heat record

The 2024 northern summer saw the highest global temperatures ever recorded, beating last year's record and making this year likely Earth's hottest ever, the EU's climate monitor said Friday.

The data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service followed a season of heatwaves around the world that scientists said were intensified by human-driven climate change.

"During the past three months of 2024, the globe has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day on record, and the hottest boreal summer on record," Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, said in a report.

"This string of record temperatures is increasing the likelihood of 2024 being the hottest year on record."

The average global temperature at the Earth's surface was 16.82°C in August, according to Copernicus, which draws on billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft, and weather stations.

The June and August global temperatures broke through the level of 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average—a key threshold for limiting the worst effects of climate change.

Human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet, raising the likelihood and intensity of climate disasters such as droughts, fires, and floods.

Heat was exacerbated in 2023 and early 2024 by the cyclical weather phenomenon El Niño, though Copernicus scientist Julien Nicolas told AFP its effects were not as strong as they sometimes are.

Meanwhile, the contrary cyclical cooling phenomenon known as La Niña has not yet started, he said.

Emissions reductions 

Against the global trend, regions such as Alaska, the eastern United States, parts of South America, Pakistan, and the Sahel desert zone in northern Africa had lower...