Geneva, 27 July 2023 (dpa/MIA) - July is set to be the hottest month in thousands of years, climate scientists from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the European Climate Change Service Copernicus reported in Geneva on Thursday.

They analyzed data up to July 23.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, "We don’t have to wait for the end of the month to know this. Short of a mini-Ice Age over the next days, July 2023 will shatter records across the board."

He added, "The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived." Guterres called on politicians to immediately adopt drastic steps to curb climate change.

The first three weeks in July were the warmest ever recorded and 2023 could break the previous record of 2016 as the hottest year on record, said Chris Hewitt, director of climate services at WMO.

According to the data, the hottest single day was July 6, with a global average temperature of 17.08 degrees Celsius, closely followed by July 5 and July 7.

The previous record was on August 13, 2016, with a reading of 16.8 degrees. That record was broken at least 17 times in July this year.

Global warming due to man-made climate change has been slowly progressing since the beginning of the last century and has accelerated sharply since the 1980s.

Although the weather in Germany and northern Europe this July felt less warm than in other summers, on a global average heatwaves in North America, Asia and southern Europe were decisive.

Photo: MIA archive