July looks set to be the hottest month ever recorded globally, according to the United Nations Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Even the southern hemisphere – where it is winter now – has had record temperatures.
The inhabitants of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, are used to hot summers. But summer temperatures in the middle of winter are not normal.
On Tuesday, 30 degrees were measured in the Argentine capital. It is the highest temperature recorded in Buenos Aires in early August since measurements began 117 years ago. The last record for the same date was made in 1942, when the thermometer showed 24.6 degrees, reports the newspaper Clarín.
The normal temperature in Buenos Aires in August is 9-18 degrees, according to the AFP news agency.
Even during the summer, record temperatures were measured in parts of Argentina: In March this year, the country experienced the longest heat wave since statistics began to be kept.
El Niño affects
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Argentina’s Environment Minister Juan Cabandié criticizes the countries in the world with large emissions of greenhouse gases.
“July was the hottest month on record. The climate crisis we are experiencing will soon be irreversible. If the biggest polluters continue to violate their agreements, there will be no future for anyone,” writes Cabandié.
Buenos Aires is not the only city in southern South America to experience unusually high temperatures. In the Chilean mountain town of Vicuña, 45 miles north of Santiago, 37 degrees were measured on Tuesday – the highest temperature since 1951, according to AFP.
– What we are experiencing is a combination of two phenomena: global warming due to climate change and the El Niño phenomenon, says Chile’s Environment Minister Maisa Rojas.
El Niño is a naturally recurring weather phenomenon that usually gives the global average temperature a boost.
Winter disappears
Raúl Cordero, a climate researcher at the University of Santiago in Chile, tells the newspaper La Tercera that it is not surprising that record temperatures are being recorded all over the world.
– Climate change means that these records are broken more and more often. In terms of temperatures and precipitation, winter in Chile is disappearing.
Record temperatures have also been measured in recent weeks in Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay.
THE FACTS El Niño
El Niño and La Niña are phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather cycle. El Niño warms the surface water in the eastern parts of the Pacific Ocean while La Niña cools it.
El Niño returns on average every two to seven years and usually lasts nine to twelve months. The climax often occurs around Christmas, hence the name El Niño (the boy).
El Niño is associated with increased heat, drought or precipitation. It is mainly countries in the Pacific Ocean that are affected, above all in Oceania, Indonesia and South America, but also parts of North America and more distant areas across Asia and Africa.
The opposite condition, La Niña, has a cooling effect on the Earth’s climate.
Earlier in 2023, a multi-year episode of La Niña ended. And at the beginning of June, the agency NOAA announced that El Niño had officially entered the Pacific Ocean.
Sources: WMO, SMHI, NOAA
Read more