Monday was hottest day globally on record, climate scientists say

Monday was recorded as the hottest day ever globally, beating a record set the day before, as countries around the world from Japan to Bolivia to the United States continue to feel the heat, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Provisional satellite data published by Copernicus shows that Monday broke the previous day’s record by 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.1 degrees Fahrenheit).

Climate scientists say the world is now as warm as it was 125,000 years ago because of human-caused climate change. While scientists cannot be certain that Monday was the very hottest day throughout that period, average temperatures have not been this high since long before humans developed agriculture.

The temperature rise in recent decades is in line with what climate scientists projected would happen if humans kept burning fossil fuels at an increasing rate.

“We are in an age where weather and climate records are frequently stretched beyond our tolerance levels, resulting in insurmountable loss of lives and livelihoods,” Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology says.

Copernicus’ preliminary data shows the global average temperature Monday was 17.15 degrees Celsius, or 62.87 degrees Fahrenheit. The previous record before this week was set just a year ago. Before last year, the previous recorded hottest day was in 2016 when average temperatures were at 16.8 degrees Celsius, or 62.24 degrees Fahrenheit.

While 2024 has been extremely warm, what kicked this week into new territory was a warmer-than-usual Antarctic winter, according to Copernicus. The same thing happened on the southern continent last year when the record was set in early July.