As global warming continues to intensify, the European Union’s climate change monitoring service said today that the world is emerging from its warmest northern hemisphere summer since records began.

It was also the warmest across Europe, at 1.54C above the 1991-2020 long-term average, exceeding the previous record from 2022. August was also the 13th month in a 14-month period where the global average temperature exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Despite the UK having its coolest summer since 2015, much of Europe experienced a hotter than average summer.

So far this year, the global average temperature has been 0.7C above the 1991-2020 average, which is the highest on record.

Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said that during the past three months of 2024, the globe has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day on record, and the hottest summer on record.

She has warned that unless countries urgently reduce their planet-heating emissions, extreme weather “will only become more intense.”.

The report says greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels are the main cause of climate change. It points out that while human activities have been the most significant cause of global temperature rise, the record heat in 2023 and into 2024 has been boosted by the natural climate pattern of El Niño.