The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the scientific arm of the United Nations, has announced this Thursday that temperatures can be expected to continue rising, after registering last month as the hottest June in the history of which there are records and two average daily temperature records this week.
“The exceptional warming in June and the beginning of July have occurred when the El Niño phenomenon begins to develop, which is expected to increase the heat both on land and in the oceans and lead to more extreme temperatures and marine heat waves” , has predicted the director of Climate Services of the WMO, Chris Hewitt.
Half a grade above average
In June, a temperature was broken 0.5ºC above the average between 1991 and 2020, surpassing the monthly average temperature record for that same month in 2019, according to data from the European Copernicus system.
On the other hand, and according to preliminary data, last Monday – the 3rd – the global average daily temperature reached 16.88 degrees Celsius, breaking the previous record of 16.80 degrees in August 2016.
Hewitt has pointed out that “more records can be expected as El Niño progresses and its impacts extend until 2024, which is worrying news for the planet.”
sea temperatures
The WMO has noted that global comparisons of daily temperatures are only possible through reanalysis (combination of satellite simulations and computer models), while this same organization uses a combination of reanalysis of a data set based on observations since stations located on the land surface and on ships.
The organization’s scientist explained that sea surface temperatures have also broken records in May and June, and that this will have consequences for the distribution of fish and ocean circulation in general.
the ocean warms up
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“It’s not just the surface, the entire ocean is heating up and absorbing energy that will stay there for hundreds of years. Alarm bells are ringing loud for the record-breaking temperatures in the North Atlantic,” he added.
Heat waves have recently been observed in the Atlantic, specifically around the United Kingdom and Ireland, and in the Baltic Sea.