After just one day!

World record for hottest day broken again

The world record for the hottest day was only set on Sunday. However, it has already been broken again. And after just one day! This is according to preliminary data from the EU's Copernicus climate change service. The global average surface temperature rose to 17.15 degrees Celsius - on Sunday it was 17.09 degrees.

This means that the average surface temperature on Monday was 0.06 degrees higher than on Sunday. The previous record was previously measured at 17.08 degrees Celsius on July 6, 2023 (see graph below). Before that, the record for the global daily average temperature was 16.8 degrees Celsius on August 13, 2016.

However, since July 3, 2023, there have been 57 days on which the record from 2016 was exceeded, spread over the months of July and August 2023 as well as June and July 2024, according to the report.

"Last Monday may have set a new world record for the warmest absolute global average temperature ever - and by that I mean tens of thousands of years back," said climate researcher Karsten Haustein from the University of Leipzig in Germany. The record was last set at the beginning of July 2023 over four consecutive days. Before that, the hottest day was in August 2016.

Last Monday may have set a new world record for the warmest absolute global average temperature ever - going back tens of thousands of years.

Klimaforscher Karsten Haustein

"We are in uncharted territory"
Director Carlo Buontempo said: "We are now in uncharted territory, and as the climate continues to warm, we are certain to see new records broken in the coming months and years."

Link with temperatures in Antarctica
According to Copernicus, the sudden rise in the daily global average temperature is linked to far above-average temperatures over large parts of Antarctica. In addition, the Antarctic sea ice extent is almost as low as it was at this time last year. This is leading to well above-average temperatures over parts of the Southern Ocean.

The European Union's Copernicus climate change service regularly publishes data on the Earth's surface temperature, sea ice cover and precipitation. The findings are based on computer-generated analyses that incorporate billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world. The data used dates back to 1950, with some earlier data also available.