Europe has been hit by deadly heat waves and extreme weather conditions since June.
“The climate crisis is taking hold of us,” according to Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. And the summer of 2024 has been declared the hottest in history.
Like other scientists, Buontempo was undecided whether 2024 would be the hottest year ever recorded because August 2023 was much hotter than average. But August 2024 equaled August 2023, so he is “pretty sure” that this year will end up breaking the record since records began.
“So that 2024 does not become the hottest ever recorded, we need to see very significant landscape cooling for the remaining months, which doesn’t seem likely at this point,” Buontempo said.
How hot was the summer of 2024?
The boreal meteorological summer – June, July and August – had an average of 16.8 degrees Celsius, according to Copernicus. That is 0.03 degrees Celsius warmer than the old record2023.
Records of Copernicus date back to 1940, but American, British and Japanese records, beginning in the mid-19th century, show that The last decade has been the warmest since regular measurements have been madeand probably in about 120,000 years, according to some scientists.
The months of August 2024 and 2023 were the hottest in the world. Although July didn’t break records this year, June did, so This summer as a whole was the hottestI say the director of Copernicus, Carlo Buontempo.
“What these sober figures indicate is that the climate crisis is taking its toll on us“says Stefan Rahmstorf, a climatologist at the Potsdam Climate Research Institute, who was not involved in the research.
Why is the Earth warming?
Although part of last year’s record heat was due to the phenomenon of The Child -a temporary natural warming of parts of the central Pacific that alters the weather around the world-, that effect has disappeared.
This shows that the main driving force is climate change long term, caused by man from the burning coal, oil and natural gassaid Buontempo. “It’s not surprising that we see this, this heat wave, that we see these extreme temperatures,” he explained. “We will surely see more.”
Will 2024 be the hottest year in history?
With the forecast of the phenomenon of The Girl -a temporary natural cooling of parts of the central Pacific-, the last four months of the year could stop setting records, as they have done for most of the last year and a half. But It is not likely that the cold will be enough to prevent the annual record from being broken in 2024following Buontempo.
It’s not just record numbers, but time that hurts people, scientists say. “All of this translates into more misery around the world, as places like Phoenix They start to feel like a closed barbecue for increasingly longer periods of the year,” said University of Michigan Environment Dean and climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck.
The city of Arizona has had this year more than 100 days with temperatures of 37.8 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). “With longer and more severe heat waves come more severe droughts in some places and more intense rains and flooding in others. “Climate change is becoming too evident, and too costly, to ignore.”
Summer of extreme heat in Europe
Few places in Europe have been spared this summer from heat waves and extreme weather conditions, and even olympic athletes They have not been able to escape the high temperatures.
Greece, Türkiye and Cyprus They suffered heat waves already in June. Five tourists died in a few weeks. Four others died in Italy later when temperatures reached 38 degrees. Heat waves are discriminatoryand older women are the most exposed to death.
In August, France experienced the hottest weekend of the year. After a deadly heat wave in 2003France is one of the best prepared European countries, with alert systems to keep citizens safe.
