In the summer of 2023 it is shaping up to be particularly warm, with Europe’s Copernicus Observatory confirming today that the combination of climate change and the return of El Niño is pushing ocean and land temperatures to unprecedented levels.

Although it is not easy to predict the evolution of summer, on Earth – from China to Spain, crossing the Atlantic—temperature records have been recorded since April, the clearest indication of the destabilization of the planet’s climate, with devastating consequences: forest fires, drought, heavy rainfall…

“This June was the warmest on record globally, just over half a degree Celsius above the 1991-2000 average, far surpassing the June 2019 record“, pointed out the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), whose data, collected since 1950, are considered, together with those of the American NOAA, among the most reliable worldwide.

The temperature broke a record in northwest europe, while some areas of Canada, the US, Mexico, Asia and eastern Australia “were clearly warmer than normal,” Copernicus announced, underscoring how large the temperature difference was from normal.

instead temperatures in western Australia, the western US and western Russia were cooler than usual.

For 15 years June temperatures have been consistently above the 1991-2000 average, but “June 2023 is well above the others. This is a kind of deviation that we are not used to,” explained C3S researcher Julien Nicolas.

The global average temperature in June was 16.51 degrees Celsius, 0.53 degrees Celsius higher than the average of the previous three decades. The previous record, in June 2019, was 0.37 degrees Celsius above this average.

Sea heatwaves

“The June 2023 record is largely due to particularly high ocean surface temperatures,” the researcher emphasized.

The temperature in the Pacific Ocean reached a record level already in May, due to the El Niño phenomenon. In June, sea heatwaves were recorded in the North Atlantic, Nicolas pointed out.

“Extreme sea heatwaves” were recorded in the Baltic Sea as well as around Ireland and Great Britain, which announced a few days ago that last June was the hottest on record.

Moreover, this trend seems to be continuing in July: last Tuesday was the warmest ever recorded globally, breaking the record briefly held by Monday, July 3, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (NOAA).

On Tuesday July 4th, the average temperature of the planet’s air and surface was measured at 17.18°C.

Global warming will be fueled in the coming months by the El Niño phenomenon which will continue throughout the year with an intensity that is expected to be “at least moderated”, as the World Meteorological Organization has announced.

At the same time, “the volume of Antarctic glaciers fell to the lowest level for the month of June since satellite records are kept, 17% less than average”, according to Copernicus.