Hottest Northern Hemisphere Summer Ever Recorded Signals Urgent Need for Climate Action

GENEVA (AP) — Earth has sweltered through its hottest Northern Hemisphere summer ever measured, with a record warm August capping a season of brutal and deadly temperatures, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

Last month was not only the hottest August scientists ever recorded by far with modern equipment, it was also the second hottest month measured, behind only July 2023, WMO and the European climate service Copernicus announced Wednesday.

August was about 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial averages. That is the threshold that the world is trying not to pass, though scientists are more concerned about rises in temperatures over decades, not merely a blip over a month’s time.

The world’s oceans — more than 70% of the Earth’s surface — were the hottest ever recorded, nearly 21 C (69.8 F), and have set high temperature marks for three consecutive months, the WMO and Copernicus said.

“The dog days of summer are not just barking, they are biting,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “Climate breakdown has begun.”

So far, 2023 is the second hottest year on record, behind 2016, according to Copernicus.

Scientists blame ever warming human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas with an extra push from a natural El Nino, which is a temporary warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide. Usually an El Nino, which started earlier this year, adds extra heat to global temperatures but more so in its second year.

Climatologist Andrew Weaver said the numbers announced by WMO and Copernicus come as no surprise, bemoaning how governments have not appeared to take the issue of global warming seriously enough. He expressed concern that the public will just forget the issue when temperatures fall again.

“It’s time for global leaders to start telling the truth,” said Weaver, a professor at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria in Canada. “We will not limit warming to 1.5 C; we will not limit warming to 2.0 C. It’s all hands on deck now to prevent 3.0 C global warming — a level of warming that will wreak havoc worldwide.”

Copernicus, a division of the European Union’s space program, has records going back to 1940, but in the United Kingdom and the United States, global records go back to the mid 1800s and those weather and science agencies are expected to soon report that the summer was a record-breaker.