AFP :
Rising temperatures should trigger a global “red alert,” the United Nations’ weather and climate agency chief said Wednesday, after global heat indices again smashed records in August.
The world saw record average temperatures in August for the second year running, preliminary data from the EU’s climate monitor seen by AFP showed.
Scientists warn that these unprecedented temperatures are in large part driven by man-made climate change, which is causing more frequent and intense extreme weather events.
And Australia, Japan, parts of China and Norway all experienced their hottest August on record, according to meteorological agencies.
“It’s clear that the temperatures are rising… above what we would like,” said Celeste Saulo, head of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
“And it is because the action is not enough.”
While the exact average global temperature for August 2024 is not yet known, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has established it will be above the record 16.82°C measured in August last year.
“Thresholds are all the time being beaten,” Saulo said, speaking in Singapore at a regional climate forum of local meteorological services.
Saulo also called for better monitoring and support for meteorological agencies, adding that “we need more resources.”
The forum comes days after the WMO released its latest assessment on the impacts of climate change in Asia and the Pacific, warning that sea-level rise is above average in many areas.
And the record August continues a near-unbroken 15-month streak, where each month eclipsed its own temperature record for the time of year, according to the C3S.
Only July 2024 was measured by C3S to be slightly cooler than July 2023, though the US NOAA weather agency believes July 2024 to be the hottest month on record.
Either way, 2023 was the world’s warmest year since weather data keeping began in the 19th century, according to the various climate monitors.
And at the beginning of August, C3S had already warned that it was “increasingly likely” 2024 would surpass it.
It said that July 2024 was 1.48°C warmer than the estimated average temperatures for the month during the period 1850-1900, before the world started to rapidly burn fossil fuels — the biggest contributor to climate change.