The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) today confirmed the record high temperature of 48.8°C set in August 11, 2021 in Sicily after a long protocol of examining the data and measurement tools used to ensure its scientific validity.

“An international panel of atmospheric scientists verified the temperature recorded by an automatic weather station in Syracuse, on the Italian island of Sicily”the WMO said in a statement.

The previous record was 48.0°C recorded in Greece on July 10, 1977 in Athens and Eleusis.

This record, although recognized by the WMO, had not been independently verified by the organization, unlike the new record in Italy.

The WMO confirms a record by scrutinizing the data as well as the measuring instruments and conditions under which it was recorded, which explains why the new record was validated two and a half years later.

“Such careful assessment gives us confidence that global temperature records are being measured correctly,” explained US geographer Randall Cerveny, climate and extreme weather rapporteur for the WMO. Cerveni is a professor of geographic sciences at Arizona State University and founded the organization’s archive in 2007.

“Furthermore, this research demonstrates the alarming trend of continued record high temperatures in certain regions of the world,” he stressed.

The results of the research, carried out by a team of scientists, were published in the scientific journal International Journal of Climatology.

The potential records presented to the WMO are “snapshots of our current climate and it is possible, even probable, that even more severe extreme records will be recorded in the future in Europe”, the professor added.

The WMO expert panel is conducting further investigations, including whether Tropical Cyclone Freddy broke the record for the longest-lasting tropical cyclone.

Freddie, which formed in early February 2023 off the coast of Australia, caused massive destruction in southern Africa twice.