For the second day in a row, the rising temperature smashed the record for the warmest day, compounding the problems caused by the planet's growing climate change.
The average surface air temperature worldwide surpassed that of Sunday, July 21, making Monday, July 22, the hottest day ever recorded, according to preliminary statistics from a European Union monitoring organization.
According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which has been monitoring temperature trends since 1940, the temperature was 17.15°C, which is 0.06°C higher than what was reported on Sunday.
Early in July 2023, the previous record was set for four days in a row. The highest day before that occurred in August 2016.
"This past Monday might have set a new global record for warmest absolute global average temperature ever — by that I mean going back tens of thousands of years," said climate scientist Karsten Haustein at Leipzig University in Germany.
Cities in China, Indonesia, and Japan have seen record temperatures in recent days. Gulf nations have also suffered from heat indicators above 60°C when humidity is taken into account.
In the meantime, temperatures have risen above 45°C in certain regions of Europe.
Scientists indicated that the reason for the record is climate change, which is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. But that's not the case this July, unlike last year when El Nino weather patterns combined with climate change brought in a new daily record.
The world was far into the neutral zone and no longer experiencing the effects of El Nino, according to Haustein, who called it "remarkable" that the record had been broken.
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