Berlin, 8 August 2023 (dpa/MIA) - July has been confirmed as Earth's hottest month on record, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Tuesday, with a global average temperature of 16.95 degrees Celsius.

That is 0.33 degrees higher than the previous record month of July 2019.

Ocean temperatures were also higher than ever recorded.

"We just witnessed global air temperatures and global ocean surface temperatures set new all-time records in July. These records have dire consequences for both people and the planet exposed to ever more frequent and intense extreme events," Copernicus deputy director Samantha Burgess warned.

The world's hottest day to date was July 6, 2023, with a global average temperature of 17.08 degrees, according to the data.

The effects of the unusually hot weather have been visible in the last month as wildfires ravaged Europe, flash foods hit Pakistan and a typhoon landed in China, the Philippines and Taiwan.

The Copernicus records only go back to 1940, but researchers can build an index of historical climate change using tree rings and air bubbles in glaciers.

This research suggests that July's temperatures are unprecedented going back thousands of years, said Carlos Buontempo, who serves as director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, in late July.

According to Copernicus, the temperature over land in July was 0.72 degrees above the average for the years 1991 to 2020 globally, and 0.51 degrees higher for the ocean temperature about 10 metres below the surface.

The Copernicus data is based on computer-generated analyses that include measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world.

The agency had released preliminary data for the month on July 27.

The US climate agency NOAA is set to publish its own data for July in mid-August.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva has meanwhile not ruled out that 2023 will be hotter than the last record year 2016, when the average temperature was 1.3 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

Globally, July 2023 is the first recorded month with an average temperature about 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, Copernicus reported.

World leaders had agreed in the Paris climate agreement of 2015 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, though this limit referred to entire year-by-year warming, as opposed to individual months.

Experts have since said that the 1.5-degree limit, even on a yearly basis, has become unrealistic and will not be adhered to by world leaders who are not doing enough to curb harmful climate policies.

UN figures say current climate policies would result in an increase in warming of around 2.8 degrees.

In Europe, whose wealthy, industrialized nations emit much more than the global average, the situation is particularly drastic. European temperatures are rising almost twice as fast as the global average. Over the past five years, according to Copernicus, Europe has been an average of 2.2 degrees warmer than in pre-industrial times, compared with 1.2 degrees globally.

The consequences of extreme heat are ominous: More frequent and severe heatwaves, droughts, forest fires, severe weather and flooding all represent a serious threat to people, animals and biodiversity.

Photo: MIA archive