Last month was the hottest June on record worldwide, the EU’s climate watchdog announced on Monday, capping half a year of wild and devastating weather from floods to heat waves.
Every month since June 2023 has surpassed its temperature record in a 13-month streak of unprecedented global heat, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said.
“This is more than a statistical oddity and highlights the great and continuous change in our climate,” said the director of the service, Carlo Buontempo.
“Even if this specific series of extremes ends at some point, we will certainly see new records being broken as the climate continues to warm,” he warned.
That was “inevitable” as long as humanity added heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere, he said.
The average global temperature recorded last month broke the previous June record set in 2023.
The new maximum came in the middle of a year marked by climatic extremes.
Terrible heat has covered parts of the world from India to Saudi Arabia, the United States and Mexico in the first half of this year.
The relentless rain, a phenomenon that scientists have linked to a warmer planet, caused major floods in Kenya, China, Brazil, Afghanistan, Russia and France.
