Feeling the heat? Scientists reveal July to be the hottest month on record

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

The World Meteorological Organization and the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service on Thursday proclaimed July's heat is beyond record-smashing. They said Earth's temperature has been temporarily passing over a key warming threshold: the internationally accepted goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Temperatures were 1.5 degrees warmer than pre-industrial times for a record 16 days this month, but the Paris climate accord aims to keep the 20- or 30-year global temperature average to 1.5 degrees. A few days of temporarily beating that threshold have happened before, but never in July. July has been so off-the-charts hot with heat waves blistering three continents — North America, Europe and Asia — that researchers said a record was inevitable. The U.S. Southwest's all-month heat wave is showing no signs of stopping while also pushing into most of the Midwest and East with more than 128 million Americans under some kind of heat advisory Thursday. «Unless an ice age were to appear all of sudden out of nothing, it is basically virtually certain we will break the record for the warmest July on record and the warmest month on record,» Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo told The Associated Press.

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Scientists say that such shattering of heat records is a harbinger for future climate-altering changes as the planet warms. Those changes go beyond just prolonged heat waves and include more flooding, longer-burning wildfires and extreme weather events that put many people at risk. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pointed to the calculations and urged world leaders, in particular of rich nations,