As the world’s temperatures rise, records will be broken in June 2024. The tendency continued despite La Niña circumstances. Experts on climate change warn of permanent effects.
The global average temperature for the past 12 months (July 2023 – June 2024) is the highest on record, at 0.76 degrees Celsius above the 1991–2020 average and 1.64 degrees Celsius above the 1850–1900 pre-industrial average, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) on Monday. Since June 2023, average temperatures have been recorded as being 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial period every month.
According to C3S, June saw record-breaking temperatures for the thirteenth consecutive month despite the emergence of La Nina conditions. With an average ERA5 (1940 onwards) surface air temperature of 16.66 degrees Celsius, it was warmer globally than any June in the data record. This was 0.67 degrees Celsius higher than the average for June from 1991 to 2020 and 0.14 degrees Celsius higher than the previous high established in June 2023.
Breaching the 1.5 degrees C threshold for a year is not equivalent to failing the Paris Agreement. In order to prevent or lessen negative effects and associated losses and damages, the Paris Agreement sets long-term goals to direct all countries to significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in order to keep the rise in global temperature this century to 2 degrees Celsius while pursuing efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
June 2024 saw the highest sea surface temperature (SST) ever recorded for the month, averaging 20.85 degrees Celsius. The SST has been the warmest in the ERA5 data record for the corresponding month of the year for fifteen consecutive months.
Outside of Europe, eastern Canada, the western United States, Mexico, and Brazil saw above-average temperatures, leading to a significant number of wildfires.
“Eastern India suffered heatwaves, as did Pakistan and Korea where the hottest June day was recorded. The majority of northern Siberia, the Middle East and northern Africa also experienced temperatures above average, as did western Antarctica,” C3S said.
“SSTs remained the highest on record in a sizeable part of the tropical western Pacific and to the west of Central America, although SSTs in the eastern equatorial Pacific increasingly fell below the 1991-2020 average during June, indicative of an expected transition from El Niño to La Niña conditions,” C3S stated, adding: “High SSTs in oceanic regions outside of the equatorial Pacific are a key contributor to the record or near-record global-average SST in June… Hurricane Beryl, which was remarkable in that it reached Category 5 as early in the year as July 1, may have intensified as a result of record SSTs across the Caribbean Sea.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Synthesis Report last year said: “Overshooting 1.5°C warming will lead to irreversible impacts and risks for human and natural systems, all growing with the magnitude and duration of overshoot”.
Experts cautioned that India might experience an increase in extreme weather occurrences if such patterns persisted. This was expected. El Niño hit the planet last year. In addition to the general warming trend, it was producing additional warming. However, as La Niña intensifies, the temperature should gradually drop. The effects of global warming will persist, though. Extreme weather events are to be expected. I have a strong feeling that the extreme occurrences will cause us to encounter many issues. Good instances are the recent rains in Delhi and Mumbai. Models struggle to anticipate these catastrophes, according to M Rajeevan, a former secretary of the ministry of earth sciences.
