Feeling of heat: The Earth broke another record of the hottest summer!

The summer of 2024 turned out to be the hottest in the history of observations on Earth, which further increases the likelihood that this year will be the warmest in the history of mankind, the European climate service Copernicus reported on Friday.

Of the hot year set last year, mainly because August 2023 was much hotter than the average. But then August 2024 coincided with 2023, which makes Buontempo "very confident" that this year will be the hottest in the history of observations.

"In order for 2024 not to be the warmest in the history of observations, we need to see a very significant cooling of the landscape during the remaining few months, which is unlikely at this stage," Buontempo said.

Given the projected La Niña - a temporary natural cold in some parts of the central Pacific - the last four months of the year may no longer be record holders like most of the last year and a half. But, according to Buontempo, it's hardly cool enough to prevent 2024 from breaking the annual record.

It's not just numbers in the record book, but the weather that harms people, climatologists say.

"All this leads to increased suffering around the world, as places like Phoenix begin to feel like barbecues locked upstairs for longer and longer periods of the year," said University of Michigan Environmental Dean and climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck. This year, the weather in Arizona stood for more than 100 days with a temperature of 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius). "With longer and stronger heat waves, there are more severe droughts in some places, and more intense rains and floods in others. Climate change is becoming too obvious and too expensive to ignore."

Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Center for Climate Research in Cape Cod, said that there was a stream of extreme heat, floods, forest fires and strong winds, which are strong and dangerous.

"Like people living in a combat zone with a constant rumble of bombs and a rumble of weapons, we become deaf to what should be alarms and air alarm sirens," Francis said in an email.

Although some of last year's record heat was caused by El Niño - a temporary natural warming in parts of the central Pacific Ocean that changes the weather around the world - this effect has disappeared, and it shows that the main driving force is long-term climate change caused by human activities. from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, Buontempo said.

"In fact, it's not surprising that we see this heat, these extreme temperatures," Buontempo said. "We will definitely see more."