World breaks hottest day record for second consecutive day

LONDON - The world again registered its hottest day on record on July 22, inching past

July 21 which had just taken the title

, according to preliminary data from a European Union monitoring agency.

As heatwaves sizzled around the world and wildfires engulfed parts of the Mediterranean, Russia and Canada, the global average surface air temperature rose to 17.15 deg C on July 22. That was 0.06 deg C higher than July 21’s record, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, which has tracked such data since 1940. This includes temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere, which is currently in winter, bringing down the worldwide average.

Scientists said it was possible that July 23 or July 24 of this week could again surpass July 22’s record, as temperature peaks generally happen in clusters.

The last record hot day was in July 2023, when the daily peak was broken across four consecutive days from July 3 through 6. Before that, it was set in August 2016.

What makes 2024’s record unusual is that unlike in 2023 and 2016, the world in April moved out of the El Nino climate pattern, which generally amplifies global temperatures owing to warmer-than-usual waters in the Eastern Pacific.

Dr Karsten Haustein, a climate scientist at Leipzig University in Germany, said it was remarkable that the record had been breached again now with the world well into the “neutral” phase of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation. This points to the greater-than-ever influence of climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, in boosting global temperatures.

“This past Monday might have set a new global record for warmest absolute global average temperature ever – by that I mean going back tens of thousands of years,” Dr Haustein said. 

Asia boils

China has issued a series of heat alerts this week, with dozens of weather stations in parts of central and north-western China recording temperatures in excess of 40 deg C.

The central Chinese city of Wuhan, which hosted an international climate change meeting this week, issued a heat red alert early on July 24 after temperatures hit 42.2 deg C a day earlier.

Taiwan was also bracing for the impact of Typhoon Gaemi

on July 24, with factories and financial markets shut down amid forecasts of torrential rain.

Wind speeds at its centre were approaching their second highest ever recorded for the Western Pacific Ocean on July 24 afternoon.

China’s state weather bureau also issued a typhoon red alert.

Scientists say climate change is making typhoons - tropical cyclones which gain energy by feeding on ocean heat – more intense, capable of reaching greater wind speeds and dumping more rain.

Japan too has experienced record-breaking heat throughout July. Heat stroke alerts were issued in 39 of the country’s 47 prefectures on July 22, with temperatures exceeding 37 deg C.

More than 40 million Americans on July 23 were facing dangerous temperatures, largely in the US West where wind gusts and dry conditions stoked dozens of wildfires.

Excessive heat will continue to blanket an area stretching from the US south-west north through Nevada and into Idaho and Montana over the next two days before milder temperatures arrive on July 26, the US National Weather Service said.

The province of Alberta in western Canada is also grappling with dozens of wildfires that have caused evacuations of thousands of people, including from Jasper National Park on July 22 night.

Even the Arctic is enduring a heatwave.

Fairbanks, Alaska was set to hit 31 deg C on July 24, approaching past records, while temperatures in parts of the Canadian, Russian and Norwegian Arctic were reaching temperatures more than 9 deg C above the 1979 to 2000 baseline average for this time of year.

Russia’s state forest agency has been battling dozens of blazes in Siberia in recent days as the unusually hot summer fuels fires.

Cooling off?

In Europe, Spain endured blistering temperatures in its second heatwave of the summer, which arrived on July 23, just four days after the first one ended.

The heat was expected to peak on July 24, with at least one wildfire burning out of control in the north-east of the country.

Weather service Aemet put about half of Spain’s territory on orange alert for heat and part of the eastern region of Extremadura on red alert, forecasting maximum temperatures of 44 deg C.

Meanwhile, Greece’s longest-ever heatwave ended officially on July 24 after 16 days, beating the record set just in 2023.

“It is noteworthy that the record was broken so quickly, in just the following year,” said Mr Kostas Lagouvardos, research director of the National Observatory of Athens.

While temperatures during the latest heatwave - Greece’s second this summer - were not extreme, nighttime temperatures did not fall below 30 deg C in certain regions, compounding the impact of heat stress on humans, Mr Lagouvardos said.

Although temperatures eased on July 24, higher-than-normal temperatures are forecast for the coming days. REUTERS