US climate agency: Last month hottest July on record

FILE - A man rests on a shady bench on a hot summer day in New York, July 15, 2024.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, recorded the Earth’s hottest July in the agency’s 175-year history — and the 14th consecutive month of record heat. In the agency’s monthly climate report released Thursday, NOAA’s environmental information chief, Karin Gleason, said NOAA data indicates July 2024 was three hundredths of a degree Celsius warmer than July 2023. "It's essentially very close to a virtual tie [to July 2023] by all intents and purposes," she said. NOAA’s figures differ only slightly from the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, which ranked July 2024 as the second hottest July on record, behind July 2023. NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, or NCEI, reported that on much of the global land surface, last month’s temperatures were above average, except for Alaska, southern South America, eastern Russia, Australia and western Antarctica. Africa, Asia and Europe had their warmest Julys on record. North America saw its second-warmest July. The agency said the world’s sea surface temperatures in July were the second warmest on record, ending a run of 15 consecutive, record-setting months. Sea surface temperatures were above average in most areas, while parts of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean and southeastern Pacific were below average. NCEI said the January through July 2024 global surface temperature was 1.28 degrees Celsius above the 20th-century average, the warmest temperatures for that period on record. That figure was driven by Africia, Europe and South America, which each experienced their warmest January-July temperatures ever. NCEI’s Global Annual Temperature Rankings Outlook indicates there is a 77% chance that 2024 will rank as the warmest year on record, and a 100% chance it will rank in the top five.