‘Stark warning’ as global temperatures hit record levels for 13th month

It has been 12 straight months that the world has been more than 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than pre-industrial levels.

Global temperatures were at record high levels in June for a 13th consecutive month, according to data by the European climate service Copernicus, which is raising the alarm over the warming climate.

June also marked the 12th straight month that the world was more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the pre-industrial era, Copernicus said in an announcement on Monday.

It said global temperatures averaged 16.66C (62F) last month, which was 0.67 degrees Celsius above the 30-year average for the month.

It broke the record for the hottest June, set a year earlier, by 0.14 degrees Celsius. It was the third hottest month recorded by Copernicus since 1940, behind only last July and last August.

“This is more than a statistical oddity and it highlights a continuing shift in our climate,” Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo said in a statement.

Copernicus senior climate scientist Nicolas Julien said in an interview that it is “a stark warning” as it signals the globe is getting closer to the 1.5-degree limit most countries accepted as part of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Records have been “shattered by very substantial margins over the past 13 months”, he said.

This, however, does not mean that the Paris accord has already failed because its 1.5-degree threshold is measured in averages reached over decades, not single months or years.

But Julien said it has already translated into more “extreme climate events”, including worsening floods, storms, droughts and heatwaves.

June’s heat hit hard in Southeast Europe, Turkey, eastern Canada, the western United States and Mexico, Brazil, northern Siberia, the Middle East, North Africa and western Antarctica, according to Copernicus.

The European Union’s flagship Earth observation programme said June was also the 15th straight month that the world’s oceans, more than two-thirds of Earth’s surface, have broken heat records.

To arrive at its conclusions, Copernicus uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world to track climate metrics and analyses them with computer simulations.

Buontempo said the current record-breaking streak of extreme heat may end soon but new records are bound to be broken in the near future as the climate continues to warm.

“This is inevitable unless we stop adding greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the oceans,” he said.