It didn’t take long! The record for the warmest global temperature has been broken for the second day in a row, with average global temperatures reaching 17.15°C on Monday

Just one day after scientists announced that Sunday was the hottest day on Earth, we already have a new record holder.

According to experts from the EU’s climate change programme, Monday (22 July) will be the warmest day ever on Earth.

The average global temperature for Monday was 62.87°F (17.15°C) – 0.1°F (0.06°C) warmer than Sunday, when the global average was 62.76°F (17.09°C).

And chances are good that when Tuesday’s data comes in, it will be three straight days of global record heat.

Experts point the finger at the fossil fuel industry, which emits greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane through the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil.

Carlo Buontempo, director of the European Climate Service Copernicus (CS3), said: “Normally these peaks are not isolated.”

“The climate is generally warming due to the increase in greenhouse gases,” he said.

The two consecutive records were driven by unusually warm oceans and higher than normal temperatures in Antarctica, the western United States and Canada, and eastern Siberia.

At the same time, Europe is battling a deadly heatwave, with wildfires in Greece and Croatia more common in dry conditions.

Buontempo said the high temperatures of recent days are consistent with the idea that human-caused climate change is accelerating, but that it is too early to draw that conclusion.

“It could be the first sign of a change in the rate of temperature rise,” he said.

We already know that June 2024 was the 13th consecutive record month in terms of heat.

In other words, every month since June 2023 has been the warmest ever recorded for that specific month – indicating a continued warming trend.

“What is truly astonishing is the difference between the temperatures of the last 13 months and the previous temperature records,” Buontempo said earlier this week.

A man cools down during a heat wave in Provence, Var, in Hyeres, France on July 22, 2024

This graph shows the warmest days of the year for each year since 1974. Notice how the last 10 years have seen much higher temperatures, compared to temperatures before the turn of the century.

“We are now in completely uncharted territory and as the climate continues to warm, we will undoubtedly see new records broken in the months and years ahead.”

Berkeley Earth climate scientist Dr. Zeke Hausfather now estimates there is a 92 percent chance that 2024 will surpass 2023 as the warmest year on record.

“It’s certainly a worrying sign, coming off 13 consecutive months of record breaking,” he said.

Climate scientists say this could be the warmest time in 120,000 years because of human-caused climate change.

However, it is not certain whether Monday was the warmest day in that period, as CS3 data only goes back to 1940.

“We’ve been in an ice age for most of the past 120,000 years, and today it’s clearly warmer than that,” said climate scientist Andrew Dessler of Texas A&M University.

According to the academic, research indicates that we are currently in the warmest period of the last 10,000 years.

A boy with a water gun plays in a fountain on July 22, 2024 in Tokyo, Japan. The Japanese government continues to issue heat stroke warnings for 40 of the country’s 47 prefectures, including Tokyo

Crowds on the beach at the seaside resort of Lyme Regis in Dorset, England on July 22, 2024 – the hottest day in the world

Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, stressed that this data could be deadly.

“We live in an era where weather and climate records are regularly beyond our tolerance limits, leading to insurmountable losses of lives and livelihoods,” he said.

C3S, managed by the European Commission, tracks temperature measurements from a variety of platforms and instruments, from weather stations to weather balloons and satellites.

The department’s measurements refer to the average air temperature for the entire planet over the entire year, which is lower than a single, usually ‘warm’ temperature measurement.

Commentators on social media were angry when it was announced that June was the hottest month on record, with one saying: ‘We had the heating on’.

But CS3 doesn’t just focus on the UK or a specific area; it takes the whole planet into account.

According to the Met Office, if we look at the UK alone, Friday was the warmest day of the year so far, while 2023 was the second warmest year since records began in 1884.