The EU’s satellite agency has announced June to be the hottest month ever recorded on Earth.
Newly released data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has revealed the European average temperature for June has been hotter than for any other June on record.
Average temperatures were found to be over 2°C above normal, approximately 1°C more than the previous record set in June 1999.
The heatwaves recorded across Europe have been dramatic. However, it hasn’t just been Europe which has been affected by soaring temperatures.
According to the C3S, which is implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the European Union, the global-average temperature for June was also the hottest on record, being 0.1°C higher than the previous record set in June 2016.
Weather experts believe rising global temperatures will lead to a higher frequency of heatwaves going forward.
Head of C3S, Jean-Noël Thépaut, has made the following comment:
Although local temperatures may have been lower or higher than those forecast, our data show that the temperatures over the southwestern region of Europe during the last week of June were unusually high.
Although this was exceptional, we are likely to see more of these events in the future due to climate change.
With environmental science experts attributing the extreme European heatwave to climate change, Climate Campaigner for Greenpeace UK, Morten Thaysen, gave the following sobering statement to UNILAD:
The tragic deaths being caused across Europe by the latest heatwave are a bitter reminder of what we have coming in the next couple of decades, but also of the far bigger disasters already occurring in hotter, poorer countries in the global South.
Climate change is already killing people, and the death toll will rise dramatically. The question we need to face up to is whether we’re willing to risk that death toll going up into the hundreds of millions, or whether we’re prepared to take decisive action now.
The government has indicated that they understand what needs to be done – complete decarbonisation – but they’re still dragging their feet on actually doing it. They should ban fracking and cancel the third runway today, and start drawing up some ambitious new policies tomorrow. If they’re short of ideas, we’d be happy to advise.
Although the UK has experienced some warm days recently, we have evaded the dangerous extremities of the European heatwave.
Met Office senior press officer, Grahame Madge, told UNILAD:
Currently we don’t have our June global temp figures collated – and we won’t have for some time. Our (HadCRUT4) data set relies on observations from land stations and buoys, but we don’t integrate remote sensing from satellites into our global data set.
June 2019 wasn’t a record from a UK perspective, although of course we did get a glancing blow from the European heatwave last week.
At least seven deaths have been linked to the European heatwave, as reported by New Scientist, with the true toll yet to become known.
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Jules studied English Literature with Creative Writing at Lancaster University before earning her masters in International Relations at Leiden University in The Netherlands (Hoi!). She then trained as a journalist through News Associates in Manchester. Jules has previously worked as a mental health blogger, copywriter and freelancer for various publications.