The bad news was expected, but the European Copernicus and American agencies NASA and NOAA confirmed it on August 8: July 2023 was the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, after a record month of June.
According to the European service Copernicus, average temperatures were measured at 0.33°C higher than the previous record in 2019. This record is partly linked to global warming caused by human activity. A phenomenon twice as fast in Europe as the world average, note the experts, particularly affecting the Mediterranean countries during this summer of 2023. To the point of breaking absolute temperature records for certain cities, regions and even countries.
Records both on the coast and in the mountains
While the summer of 2023 fortunately did not break the European record of 48.8°C, recorded in Sicily in August 2021 and recently validated by the UN this summer, several countries have had to deal with several heat waves.
In mid-July, the western Mediterranean basin was notably confronted with a third heat wave, linked to the anticyclone Charon. Spain then observes several temperature records: 45.4 ° C in Figueras, in Catalonia, on July 18, then 44.2 ° C in Malaga on July 19.
On the same date, Durrës in Albania and Decimomannu in Italy also broke their record, according to the British daily The Guardian, with 40.4°C and 46.2°C respectively. At the beginning of August, the Iberian Peninsula once again faced intense heat, with a new maximum temperature of 46.8°C measured in Valencia on August 10. This is 3.4°C higher than the previous record, recorded in 1986.
Mediterranean France was also not spared by the heat wave of mid-July. On July 18, temperatures were between 6.9 and 13.4°C above normal for this time of year. Near the Spanish border, the city of Verdun (Ariège) broke its record with 40.6°C, as did Serralongue (Pyrénées-Orientales) with 40.4°C. In Corsica, Renno also reached 38.3°C for the first time.
As Météo-France told AFP, the records at Serralongue and Verdun in Ariège were fueled by a foehn effect, the sudden heating of an air mass after crossing a mountain range.
The heat also reached cities further north on the same date: in the South-East, the town of Tiranges in Haute-Loire recorded a new maximum temperature of 40.6 ° C, while the resorts of Avrieux in Savoie (1,000 meters above sea level) and L’Alpe d’Huez in Isère (1,860 meters) broke their record with 36°C and 29.5°C.
Morocco breaks its national temperature record twice
The most recent records have even exceeded national maximum temperatures recorded in two Mediterranean countries. In Morocco, which has been experiencing a series of heat waves since the beginning of summer, a red heat alert was issued for several provinces in the first weeks of July. The country even exceeds its national temperature record twice during the summer of 2023: first on July 13, with 49.9 ° C in the city of Samra in Western Sahara, then on August 11 with 50.4 ° C. in Agadir, exceeding this symbolic bar for the first time.
A record explained by “the rise of a mass of dry and hot air from the South causing a significant rise in temperatures and exceeding the monthly normal of 5 to 13 degrees”, explained the Moroccan General Directorate of Meteorology (DGM). in a press release.
On the Asian shores of the Mediterranean, Turkey would also have broken its national record on August 15, according to the Turkish General Directorate of Meteorology quoted by the media Duvar : the city of Hassa would have reached for the first time the threshold of 50 degrees all round, or 0.9 ° C more than the maximum temperature recorded previously.
The oceans also concerned
The summer of 2023 was also marked by world water temperature records. An absolute record was thus measured on July 30, with 20.96°C and for the whole month. A few days earlier, the Mediterranean Sea also broke its daily heat record, with a median temperature of 28.71 ° C, according to the main Spanish maritime research center.
North Atlantic waters also reached an average temperature never before measured, with a record average surface water temperature of 24.9°C observed at the end of July, according to preliminary data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). With a record high of 38.3°C off the coast of Florida, USA. Impressive temperatures which will have “potentially devastating effects on ecosystems and the environment”, warned the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) at the start of the summer.