By Kimberly M. S. Cartier
July 2019 (click here) might have broken the record for highest monthly surface air temperature, according to a report from a European climate monitoring agency. Temperatures in Alaska, Greenland, Siberia, and Antarctica were the highest relative to a 30-year average.
“July has re-written climate history, with dozens of new temperature records at local, national and global level,” Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, said in a statement.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) released the report on 5 August. The report shows that by one metric, July 2019 surpassed the previous record holder for hottest month ever, July 2016, by 0.4°C.
July’s temperature record comes on the heels of reports of Antarctic sea ice extent being the lowest on record, “unprecedented” Arctic wildfires, sweeping heat waves on multiple continents, and a Greenland ice sheet losing 12.5 billion tons of water in a single day....
