The boreal summer of 2024 was the hottest on record worldwide, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), an observatory of the European Union, reported today.

“During the last three months of 2024, the planet has experienced the hottest months of June and August, the hottest day, and the hottest boreal summer all on record so far,” said C3S Deputy Director Samantha Burgess.

She stressed that such record temperatures increase vouch the probability that 2024 will be the hottest year on record.

The extreme temperature-related events during this summer will only intensify, bringing more devastating consequences for the planet, unless we take urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Burgess warned.

According to data collected by the observatory, which based itself on measurements made by satellites, ships, airplanes and meteorological stations around the planet since 1940, the temperature during the months of June, July and August surpassed the average for those months of the boreal summer during the period 1990-2020 by 0.69 degrees Celsius, slightly exceeding the record for 2023.

Last August registered 1,51 degrees above pre-industrial levels and was the thirteenth month in a series of fourteen months in which the surface air temperature was above 1.5 degrees of those pre-industrial temperatures.

“The global average temperature over the past 12 months has been the hottest on record for any 12-month period, at 0,76 degrees above the 1991-2020 average, and 1,64 degrees above the pre-industrial average for 1850-1900,” Copernicus said in its report, referring to the period between September 2023 and August 2024.