World breaks hottest day record despite cooler climate pattern

Wildfires have engulfed parts of the Mediterranean, Russia and Canada amid rise in global average surface temperature

Firefighters tackle a blaze near the village of Tabara, northern Spain. AFP

The world experienced its hottest day on record on Monday, narrowly overtaking the previous high set only 24 hours earlier on Sunday, new data from an EU monitoring agency shows.

While regions around the world sizzled in a heatwave and wildfires engulfed parts of the Mediterranean, Russia and Canada, the global average surface air temperature rose to 17.15°C on Monday, July 22.

This temperature was 0.06°C higher than Sunday's record, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, which has tracked such data since 1940.

The recorded temperature also includes the Southern Hemisphere, which is currently in winter, bringing down the worldwide average.

Scientists said it was possible that Tuesday or Wednesday of this week could again pass Monday's record, as temperature peaks generally occur in clusters.

The previous record hot day was in July 2023, as the mark was repeatedly broken across four consecutive days from July 3 to July 6. Before that, it was set in August 2016.

What makes this year's record unusual is that – unlike in 2023 and 2016 – the world in April moved out of the El Nino climate pattern, which generally amplifies global temperatures owing to warmer than usual waters in the Eastern Pacific.

Karsten Haustein, a climate scientist at Leipzig University in Germany, said it was remarkable the record had been breached again, with the world well into the neutral phase of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation.

This points to the greater-than-ever influence of climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, in boosting global temperatures, scientists say.

"It's really alarming that there's not an El Nino year and we're seeing this," said Joyce Kimutai, a climate scientist with Imperial College London and the Kenya Meteorological Department. "We've seen the signal come back to neutral, and almost La Nina, actually."

A La Nina would lead to substantial global cooling, masking some of the warming from climate change.

"Then we would really expect the temperatures to come down," she said. "If that is not happening, then it means there's really something wrong happening in our planet."

Health alerts in Asia

China has issued a series of heat alerts this week, with dozens of weather stations in parts of central and north-western China recording temperatures in excess of 40°C.

The central Chinese city of Wuhan, which hosted an international climate change meeting this week, issued a heat red alert early on Wednesday after temperatures hit 42.2°C.

Taiwan was also bracing for the impact of Typhoon Gaemi on Wednesday, with factories and financial markets shut down amid forecasts of torrential rain.

Wind speeds at its centre were approaching their second highest ever recorded for the western Pacific Ocean on Wednesday afternoon. China's state weather bureau also issued a typhoon red alert.

Scientists say climate change is making typhoons, tropical cyclones that gain energy by feeding on ocean heat, more intense, capable of reaching greater wind speeds and dumping more rain.

Japan too has experienced record-breaking heat throughout July. Heat stroke alerts were issued in 39 of the country's 47 prefectures on Monday, with temperatures exceeding 37°C.

US, Canada and Russia struggle to contain wildfires

More than 40 million Americans on Tuesday were facing dangerous temperatures, largely in the US west where wind gusts and dry conditions stoked dozens of wildfires.

Excessive heat will continue to blanket an area stretching north from the US south-west through Nevada and into Idaho and Montana over the next two days before milder temperatures arrive on Friday, the US National Weather Service said.

The province of Alberta in western Canada is also grappling with dozens of wildfires that have caused evacuations of thousands of people, including from Jasper National Park on Monday night.

The 2022 European heatwave - in pictures

Even the far north is enduring a heatwave.

Fairbanks, Alaska was set to hit 31°C on Wednesday, approaching past records, while temperatures in parts of the Canadian, Russian and Norwegian Arctic were reaching temperatures more than 9°C above the 1979 to 2000 baseline average for this time of year.

Russia's state forest agency has been battling dozens of blazes in Siberia in recent days as the unusually hot summer fuels fires.

Heatwave across Europe

In Europe, Spain endured blistering temperatures in its second heatwave of the summer, which arrived on Tuesday, only four days after the first one ended. The heat was expected to peak on Wednesday, with at least one wildfire burning out of control in the north-east of the country.

Weather service AEMET put about half of Spain's territory on orange alert for heat and part of the eastern region of Extremadura on red alert, forecasting maximum temperatures of 44°C.

Meanwhile, Greece's longest-ever heatwave ended officially on Wednesday after 16 days, beating the record set just last year.

"It is noteworthy that the record was broken so quickly, in just the following year," said Kostas Lagouvardos, research director of the National Observatory of Athens.

While temperatures during the latest heatwave, Greece's second this summer, were not extreme, nighttime temperatures did not fall below 30°C in certain regions, compounding the impact of heat stress on humans, Mr Lagouvardos said.