Working at Leipzig University in Germany, Haustein’s analysis corroborates the death knell sounded by other scientists, who had warned that July was likely to be the hottest month on record.
“The extreme weather which has affected many millions of people in July is unfortunately the harsh reality of climate change and a foretaste of the future,” Petteri Taalas, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, said in a statement, reports NYT. “The need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is more urgent than ever before.”
Using data from the Global Forecast System (GFS), which is a weather forecast model of National Centres for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), the research found that this July will be warmer than July 2019, which is at present the hottest.
“It is, therefore, virtually certain July 2023 will set a new global temperature record. We just lived through the warmest of any months over thousands of years,” Haustein stated.
The analysis added that not only will it be the warmest July, but the warmest month ever in terms of absolute global mean temperature.
“Since the effects of El Nino only fully emerge in the second-half of the year, June, and now July, are likely to be followed by more record warm months up until at least early 2024,” the research stated.
Skymet Weather’s vice president (meteorology and climate change) Mahesh Palawat sees a link between rising temperatures and India’s heavy monsoon. “Warming of oceans has led to increased incursion of moisture in the atmosphere over India. This has increased the capacity of air to hold more moisture, leading to extremely heavy rainfall.”