A man cools himself with water during a heatwave in Ourense, northern Spain this summer (Picture: Anadolu)
Summer 2024 was the world’s hottest on record, according to climate experts, making it likely this year will be the warmest year globally too.
The northern meteorological summer – June, July and August – averaged 16.8°C, this year, revealed Copernicus, an EU agency that tracks global warming
This is 0.03°C warmer than last year when a previous record was set.
The UK actually had its coolest summer since 2015, averaging 14.37°C, but many parts of Europe sweltered under extreme heat.
Austria and Spain had their warmest on record, while Finland had its joint warmest with Switzerland.
The Malaga province in southern Spain, for example, recorded a temperature high of 44.3°C and a minimum temperature one night of 30.7°C, according to SUR in English newspaper.
Athens, in Greece, was hit by wildfires in August this year (Picture: AFP via Getty Images)
In Austria, the summer of 2024 (as of August 24) was on average 2.2°C warmer than the average temperature of the years 1991 to 2020, pushing 20°C.
‘Will the summer hear never end this year?’ the Austrian news outlet Newsflix asked.
Sweden, a country not exactly known for heat, was also baked this summer. Uppsala, a city about 44 miles north of Stockholm, saw the country’s highest summer temperature of 32°C on June 28 – typically, the mercury barely pushes above 20.
Finland too. Lapland, the winter paradise popular with cross-country skiers and northern lights enthusiasts, saw its warmest summer in history.
The north saw an average of 14-16.5°C while the mercury down south reached highs of 18.5°C on average, according to Finland’s national weather service. These are about two degrees higher than normal.
Copernicus records go back to 1940, but American, British and Japanese records, which start in the mid-19th century, show the last decade has been the hottest since regular measurements were taken.
A child plays in a fountain during a hot summer day in Chemnitz, Germany in August (Picture: Reuters)
Some scientists believe it’s the hottest in 120,000 years.
The last two Augusts tied for the hottest globally at 16.8°C. July was the first time in more than a year that a month did not set a record, but because June was so much hotter than last year, this summer as a whole was the hottest, Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said.
The August just gone was the 13th out of 14 months in which global temperatures had climbed 1.5°C.
While this might not sound too much, every degree increases the likelihood of extreme weather events like heatwaves, wildfires and flooding.
The dew point – one of several ways to measure the air’s humidity – probably was at or near record high this summer for much of the world, Buontempo added.
Climate experts were previously unsure whether 2024 would set the record for being the hottest because August 2023 temperatures were so high.
Beachgoers enjoying West Bay in Dorset this summer. Although the UK had some hot days overall it was the coolest summer since 2015 (Picture: Getty Images Europe)
People try to protect themselves from the sun in Rome, Italy last month (Picture: Anadolu)
However, with August 2024 matching the previous year, Buontempo is ‘pretty certain’ this year will be the hottest on record.
‘In order for 2024 not to become the warmest on record, we need to see very significant landscape cooling for the remaining few months, which doesn’t look likely at this stage,’ he said.
With a forecasted La Nina – a temporary natural cooling of parts of the central Pacific – the last four months of the year may no longer be record-setters like most of the past year and a half, but it is not likely to cool enough to keep 2024 from breaking the annual record, Buontempo said.
Climate scientists say the soaring temperatures, as well as other extreme weathers caused by climate change, such as flooding, are getting progressively worse.
But Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Centre in Cape Cod, in the US warned that despite this, the issue is not being taken seriously enough.
‘Like people living in a war zone with the constant thumping of bombs and clatter of guns, we are becoming deaf to what should be alarm bells and air-raid sirens,’ she said.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.