Last month was hotter than any June ever recorded, marking the 13th consecutive month in which the global average temperature reached a record value for the respective month, the EU's climate change service Copernicus said on Monday.
Temperatures in June were also 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, marking the 12th consecutive month in which the 1.5-degree-Celsius mark was met or surpassed, according to the monthly report.
At the 2015 climate conference in Paris, the global community set itself the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels.
For the period from July 2023 to June 2024, the global temperature was 1.64 degrees above the pre-industrial average, according to Copernicus data.
While the EU climate scientists acknowledged that a series of 13 months of record warmth was "unusual," they pointed to a similar series of monthly global temperature records in 2015 and 2016.
The average surface air temperature for June was 16.66 degrees, 0.67 degrees above the average level recorded for the month between 1991 and 2020 and 0.14 degrees above the previous record set in June 2023, according to the report.
The average European temperature in June exceeded the average value for the month from 1991 to 2020 by 1.57 degrees, making it the second warmest June since records began in Europe.
According to the report, temperatures were particularly high in the south-east of the continent and in Turkey, while temperatures in western Europe, Iceland and north-west Russia were close to or below average.
Meanwhile, last June was "wetter than average" in Iceland, central Europe and large parts of south-western Europe, "with heavy precipitation leading to floods in regions of Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland."
Outside Europe, temperatures last month were particularly high in eastern Canada and the western US as well as in Mexico, Brazil, northern Siberia, the Middle East, northern Africa and western Antarctica, according to the scientists.
Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said the developments clearly highlight the effects of climate change, predicting that new records are inevitable if the world doesn't find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The European Union's Copernicus climate service regularly publishes data on the earth's surface temperature, sea ice cover and precipitation.
The findings are based on computer-generated analyses that incorporate billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world.
