Top NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt predicted on Thursday that July 2023 will likely be the world’s hottest month on record in hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
According to tools run by the European Union and the University of Maine, which incorporate ground and satellite data into models to produce early estimates, this month has already seen daily records broken.
In a NASA briefing with the media, Schmidt said that although they differ significantly, the pattern of high heat is undeniable and will most certainly be mirrored in the more thorough monthly data provided later by US agencies.
“We are seeing unprecedented changes all over the world — the heat waves that we’re seeing in the United States, Europe, and China are shattering records left, right, and center”, he continued.
Furthermore, the impacts cannot be blamed exclusively on the El Nino weather phenomenon, which has really only just emerged.
Schmidt further said, “Despite the fact that El Nino is playing a minor role, what we’re seeing is the overall warmth, pretty much everywhere, especially in the oceans. For months, we’ve been witnessing record-breaking sea surface temperatures, even outside of the tropics”.
He went on to say, “And we expect that to continue, and the reason why we think that’s going to continue is that we continue to put greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere”.
What is happening right now is raising the chances that 2023 will be the warmest year on record, which Schmidt now assigns a 50-50 chance based on his calculations, while he added other scientists had placed it as high as 80 percent.
“However, we anticipate that 2024 will be an even warmer year because we will be starting off with that El Nino event that’s building now, and will peak near the end of this year”, he added.
Schmidt’s warnings come as the world has been buffeted by flames, dire health warnings, and broken temperature records in the last week.
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