It is believed that climate emissions and the intensified weather phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean are behind the record high global temperatures.
Roni Kuronen,
Elsa Osipova
The global heat record was broken on Monday, the US National Meteorological Institute NCEP says.
According to NCEP data, the average temperature of the entire globe rose to 17.01 degrees Celsius on Monday.
The last time the global temperature record was broken was in August 2016. At that time, an average temperature of 16.92 degrees was measured worldwide.
The global temperature is rising due to a heat wave affecting, for example, the southern parts of the United States and China. Temperatures of almost 50 degrees have been measured in North Africa recently.
Even in Antarctica, exceptionally high temperatures have been observed. It is currently winter in Antarctica, but temperatures of up to 8.7 degrees Celsius have been measured in the region.
The breaking of the global heat record has been in the news, for example Guardian magazine. Leading the California-based Global Climate and Health Alliance Jeni Miller tells the Guardian that the effects of global warming are already visible in people’s everyday lives around the world.
– People already have to struggle with heat waves, forest fires, air pollution, floods and hurricanes. Global warming also increases crop losses, infectious diseases and migration.
For example, the huge forest fires that started in Canada in May continued for more than a month. The effects of the fires were visible as smoke and reduced air quality as far away as Europe. Southern Europe also saw violent floods caused by heavy rains in May.
According to Miller, the use of coal, oil and gas is harmful to human health, and one of the main causes of climate change.
– The countries’ governments should commit to abandoning fossil fuels and switch to renewable forms of energy, he states.
El Niño behind the heat record
In addition to carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions, global warming has been explained by the El Niño phenomenon, which is intensifying again in the Pacific Ocean. With the weakened trade winds at sea, the entire Pacific Ocean region warms up, which leads to an increase in temperatures across the globe. It is about the largest natural weather fluctuations on the planet, to which climate change has given additional momentum in recent years.
– Unfortunately, this threatens to be only the first of a series of several records this year, climate researcher Zeke Hausfather tells the Guardian.
The opposite La Niña phenomenon, which transports warm surface water from the east coast of the sea to the west, had continued in the Pacific Ocean for about three years. The phenomena vary in periods of 2–7 years.