This summer saw the highest temperatures ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere, reinforcing predictions that 2024 may become Earth’s hottest year yet, according to the European Union’s climate authority.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announced on Friday that, after months of severe heatwaves globally, experts attributed these records to human-driven climate shifts.

Samantha Burgess, the deputy director of C3S, explained, “In the last quarter of 2024, we’ve witnessed the hottest June, the hottest August, record-breaking daily temperatures, and the warmest boreal summer in history.”

She added, “This continued trend of soaring temperatures makes it likely that 2024 will set a new all-time high.”

The recurring weather event El Niño, known for warming surface waters in the Pacific Ocean, especially during late 2023 and early 2024, has added to the heat. However, according to C3S expert Julien Nicolas, its impact wasn’t as intense as during previous cycles.

At the same time, the opposing weather cycle, La Niña, characterized by cooling, has yet to materialize, Nicolas noted.

In contrast to the global warming trend, regions like Alaska, parts of the eastern United States, sections of South America, Pakistan, and the Sahel in northern Africa experienced cooler-than-average temperatures during August, the report mentions.

Despite these occasional anomalies, climate change-driven disasters have continued to strike through the summer.

In Sudan, heavy rainfall last month led to flooding that displaced over 300,000 people and triggered a cholera outbreak amid ongoing conflict.

Similarly, experts have confirmed that Typhoon Gaemi, which devastated the Philippines, Taiwan, and China in July and resulted in more than 100 deaths, was worsened by climate change.

Missed Climate Goals

Rising greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are steadily warming the planet, increasing both the probability and severity of climate-related catastrophes, including extreme droughts, wildfires, and floods.

“Temperatures and extreme weather events will only worsen unless we take swift measures to curb greenhouse gases,” Burgess warned.

Most governments have set emissions reduction targets to try to limit the temperature increase to below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), a key goal of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. But the United Nations has raised concerns that the world continues to fall short of meeting the long-term objectives outlined in this deal.

Temperatures during June and August exceeded the crucial 1.5C threshold above pre-industrial levels—a tipping point in limiting the worst effects of climate change.

However, scientists won’t consider this threshold fully breached until it has consistently been surpassed over several decades.

The global rise in temperatures currently stands at around 1.2C, according to data from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

But C3S revealed that, over the past 14 months, the critical 1.5C level had already been exceeded 13 times.

In August, the global average temperature at the Earth’s surface peaked at 16.82C (62.28F), based on comprehensive measurements collected via satellites, ships, aircraft, and weather stations, according to the monitoring group.