Last month marked the world’s hottest July on record, US scientists say

People cool off at a fountain during a heat wave in Madrid, Spain, on 13 July. Photograph: Óscar del Pozo/AFP via Getty Images

The world just had its hottest July ever recorded, elongating a string of monthly temperature highs that now stretch back 15 consecutive months, US government scientists have announced.

Last month was about 1.2C (2.1F) hotter than average across the globe, making it the hottest July on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said on Thursday. This means that every month for the past 15 months has beaten its previous monthly record.

“The streak started in June 2023 and now exceeds the record streak set over 2015 and 2016,” said Karin Gleason, monitoring section chief at Noaa’s National Centers for Environmental Information, who added that last month’s record was by a “photo finish” small margin over last July.

The record warmth last month saw new July highs for Europe and Africa, while North America had its second hottest ever July. About a fifth of the world’s total land surface had new record temperatures in July, with only the very tip of South America having a cooler than average month.

Across the oceans, which have been experiencing exceptional surging levels of heat over the past year, last month was the second hottest July recorded, breaking a string of 15 consecutive record hot months.

July saw searing heat for much of the globe, with heatwaves sweeping places such as southern Europe and large parts of the US. Last month also saw, unusually, the daily average global temperature record broken twice in two consecutive days.

Noaa’s rankings differ slightly from the EU’s Earth-watching service Copernicus, which last week said that July was the second hottest such month on record.

On Thursday Noaa said there was now a 77% chance that 2024 will be the hottest year on record, beating the existing record set only last year. The agency added that there was also a two-in-three chance of a La Niña climate event developing from September onwards, a periodic natural shift in conditions that often brings cooler temperatures than its reverse, El Niño, which has helped fuel recent temperature highs.

“What is truly staggering is how large the difference is between the temperature of the last 13 months and the previous temperature records,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service following the daily record set on 21 July. “We are now in truly uncharted territory and as the climate keeps warming, we are bound to see new records being broken in future months and years.”

Climate scientists have stressed the elevated heat is a clear sign of the influence of a climate crisis being driven by the burning of fossil fuels and a sign that efforts to keep the world to within a 1.5C temperature rise beyond pre-industrial times are insufficient.

“With temperatures increasing this much, we need to do absolutely everything we can to reduce the emissions driving climate change more rapidly,” said Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at Duke University.

“That means accelerating the phaseout of fossil fuels, reducing methane this decade, and tackling agricultural emissions as well. These things aren’t easy, but the consequences of not doing them are mounting so quickly that we are dooming ourselves to well over 1.5C, with higher temperatures each year we delay.”