Global temperatures rise above average in early June amid fears of 2023 being hottest year on record

Preliminary global average temperatures taken at the beginning of June were the warmest on record for the period, said the European Union’s climate monitoring unit, on Thursday (June 15). This comes as last week, scientists at the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the arrival of an expected El Nino climate phenomenon has raised fears of extreme weather and temperature records.

‘Remarkable global warmth’ in early June: EU monitor

A report by Copernicus, the EU’s observation agency, said that they have noted a “remarkable global warmth” in the first week of June this year. The report cited the data provided by ERA5 which found that the first few days of the month even breached a 1.5 degree Celsius increase when compared with pre-industrial times.

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The report suggests that this might be the first time this breach of high temperature had occurred in the industrial era. “Global-mean surface air temperatures for the first days of June 2023 were the highest in the ERA5 data record for early June by a substantial margin,” said the report, with the data collection going back as far as 1950.

The temperature recorded in early June isalso nearly one degree Celsius above levels previously recorded for the same month back in 1979. “The world has just experienced its warmest early June on record, following a month of May that was less than 0.1°C cooler than the warmest May on record,” said Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Deputy Director Samantha Burgess.

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She added, “Monitoring our climate is more important than ever to determine how often and for how long global temperatures are exceeding 1.5 degrees. Every single fraction of a degree matters to avoid even more severe consequences of the climate crisis.”

US announces the arrival of El Nino

Last week, NOAA said that the El Nino conditions are now present and will “gradually strengthen” into early 2024. The weather pattern in question is marked by warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean near the equator that last occurred in 2018-19.

ALSO READ |US announces arrival of El Nino, triggering fear of extreme weather conditions

“The global surface temperature anomaly is at or near record levels right now, and 2023 will almost certainly be the warmest year on record,” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, as quoted by The Guardian. He added, “That is likely to be true for just about every El Niño year in the future as well, as long we continue to warm the planet with fossil fuel burning and carbon pollution.”

This also comes as NOAA, in its update on Wednesday reported that the world witnessed its third-warmest May on a 174-year temperature record, last month.

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However, Ellen Bartow-Gillies, a climate scientist at NOAA said that the agency is yet to process its temperature data for June but it is not looking good as higher temperatures may continue.

“We are off to a pretty warm start to the year, it’s not unprecedented, but we could be getting even warmer due to El Niño,” said Bartow-Gillies, as quoted by The Guardian.


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