Record June temperatures point to more extremes in world
LONDON: North America experienced its warmest June on record, according to the EU’S Earth observation programme. That will come as no surprise given the unprecedentedly high temperatures recently recorded during the heatwave that hit Canada and parts of the United States.
But the United Kingdom residents may be startled to learn that despite the rain and cloud they experienced, it was the second warmest June on record for Europe. It was also the fourth warmest June ever recorded worldwide.
Copernicus, the EU’S Earth observation programme, produces its figures for world temperatures from computer-generated analyses using billions of measurements from satellites, aircraft and weather stations around the world.
Climate experts say the findings point to a frightening escalation in temperature extremes.
“We are getting used to recording high temperatures being recorded somewhere around the world every year now,” said Prof Peter Stott of the UK Met Office.
He added what meteorologists like him find shocking is not that the world is experiencing more heatwaves, but that temperature records are increasingly being broken by such large margins.
In Canada and the north-western US, several cities recorded temperatures a full 5 degrees Celsius above previous records. A Siberian heatwave in 2020 saw temperatures more than 5C0 above the previous record between January and June.
A study by the Met Office on the extreme heat in the Russian region found that reaching such temperatures was almost impossible without humancaused climate change.