July 2024 was second-hottest on record, says EU climate service

The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) says July 2024 was the second-hottest July on record globally.

The report, which was released on Thursday, said last month was the second-hottest month globally.

C3S said this year’s July reached an average temperature of 16.91°C and was only 0.04°C lower than the previous high set in July 2023.

The EU’s climate service said the new record marks the end of a 13-month period when each month was the warmest for the respective month of the year.

The report said although last month was not as warm as July 2023 on average, the earth experienced its two hottest days on record.

C3S said daily global average temperature reached 17.16°C and 17.15°C on July 22 and 23 respectively.

“The month was 1.48°C above the estimated July average for 1850-1900, the pre-industrial reference period, marking the end of a series of 12 consecutive months at or above 1.5°C,” the report states.

“The global-average temperature for the past 12 months (August 2023 – July 2024) is 0.76°C above the 1991-2020 average and 1.64°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.”

Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S, said the streak of record-breaking months has come to an end “but only by a whisker”.

“Globally, July 2024 was almost as warm as July 2023, the hottest month on record. July 2024 saw the two hottest days on record,” Burgess said.

“The overall context hasn’t changed, our climate continues to warm. The devastating effects of climate change started well before 2023 and will continue until global greenhouse gas emissions reach net-zero.”

Every month since June 2023 has now ranked as the planet’s hottest since records began, compared with the corresponding month in previous years.

The EU’s climate service had earlier said June 2024 was the hottest June in history.