It was an extreme summer, a summer of all dangers. Wearing French glasses, the superlative might seem excessive, as the last few months have seemed gloomy in France, particularly in the north of the country. But, on a global scale, the period from June to August is the hottest ever recorded. It exceeds the 1991-2020 average by 0.69°C, narrowly beating the previous record of 2023, according to the latest bulletin from the European Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), published on Friday, September 6.
Across the globe, from Lapland to Australia, China to the United States, countries have suffered from heatwaves, floods, droughts and wildfires caused by human-induced climate change. Calamities that have affected millions of people, killed thousands and caused billions of dollars in economic losses.
With an average temperature of 16.82°C, August 2024 is the warmest August on record, tied with 2023. It continues a nearly unbroken run of fifteen months that have each broken their own record – with the exception of July in the Copernicus dataset, but not in others, such as that of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). August is also the thirteenth month in a fourteen-month stretch to exceed pre-industrial averages by 1.5°C, the most ambitious limit of the Paris Agreement.
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“Even if it’s not all year round, we’re starting to live in a +1.5°C world, a warming that is harmful to humans and many ecosystems. This is bringing us closer to certain tipping points,” warns Davide Faranda, climatologist at the Pierre-Simon Laplace Institute.
Of strong anomalies
Throughout the summer, the mercury soared, sparing no continent. Australia recorded record temperatures in the middle of winter, up to 41.6 °C on the northwest coast. The country has just experienced its hottest August, as have Spain and some Chinese provinces. In Japan, the entire summer was historically scorching (on par with 2023), as has been the case in South Korea for half a century. On July 7, more than 70 million Americans were under heatwave warning, causing deaths. In June, in Saudi Arabia, more than 1,300 people died during the pilgrimage to Mecca, where the thermometer reached 51.8 °C
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