June 2024 marks the 12th consecutive month of global temperatures reaching 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial (1850-1900) level, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service on Monday.
The global average temperature for the past 12 months (July 2023-June 2024) is the highest on record, at 0.76 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average and 1.64 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average, said a report released by Copernicus.
A man refreshes at a fountain at Piazza del Popolo amid a heat wave in Rome, Italy, June 20, 2024. /CFP
According to the report, June 2024 was the warmest on record, with an average surface air temperature of 16.66 degrees Celsius, 0.67 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average for the month and 0.14 degrees Celsius above the previous high set in June 2023.
This marks the 13th month in a row as the warmest in the data record for the respective month of the year, the report said.
"This is more than a statistical oddity, it highlights a large and continuing shift in our climate," said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
"Even if this specific streak of extremes ends at some point, we are bound to see new records being broken as the climate continues to warm," Buontempo said. "Unless we stop adding greenhouse gas into the atmosphere and the oceans."
The Paris Agreement released in 2015 has set temperature targets limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level, with efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. The report said that the limits set in the Paris Agreement are targets for the average temperature of the planet over a 20- or 30-year period.
(Cover: A young man cools off in the drizzle from a public fountain before sunset in Bucharest, Romania, June 20, 2024. /CFP)