July 2019 of the year was the hottest month on the planet in the history of observations

During the hottest month ever recorded by humans, a local television station in the Netherlands broadcast non-stop images of winter landscapes to help viewers momentarily forget about the heat outside. In Switzerland, sections of railway tracks were painted white to prevent them from sagging due to extreme heat. In Belgium, drug traffickers voluntarily called the police after being stuck in an overheated container of cocaine. July 2019 was officially recognized as the hottest month on the planet in the entire history of records - and this is more than a hundred years.

Фото: Depositphotos

Millions of hectares of fire in the Arctic raged. Because of the large-scale melting of ice in Greenland, 197 billions tons of water went to the Atlantic Ocean, raising the sea level, writes The Washington Post. Temperature records followed one after another: 38,7 degrees Celsius in Cambridge, England, 42,6 in Paris, France, and Lingen, Germany.

“We always had hot summers. But this is not the summer of our youth. This is not your grandfather's summer,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters as July gave way to August.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service of the European Union estimated that the extremely hot July of 2016 of the year passed the position of July of 2019, the record was broken by about 0,07 degrees Fahrenheit (0,04 Celsius).

Scientists have discovered that the planet is experiencing one of the hottest summer months, and the period from 2015 to 2019 is likely to be the warmest in the history of observations.

“This is not science fiction. This is the reality of climate change. This is happening now and will get worse in the future without urgent action,” said World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.

On the subject: Scientists: there have been warming on Earth, but what is happening now has no analogues

The Copernicus rating was formed by hourly receiving millions of readings from weather balloons, satellites, buoys and other sources and transmitting them to a computer model. Results still need to be verified against thousands of temperature measurement points around the world. These indications will eventually be reported by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies in the coming weeks. Although their ratings may vary, the final results, according to scientists, are unlikely to be significantly different.

It is noteworthy that the monthly temperature data for July broke the record even without the additional influence of the natural phenomenon of El Nino in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which increases the heat and helps to increase planetary temperatures. For example, the 2016 record of the year became one with the extremely strong El Nino.

From the scorching heat in Europe to the gigantic forest fires in Siberia and Alaska, the record heat of July of the 2019 of the year left its mark on the people and ecosystems on which they depend.

The monthly spike in temperatures was driven largely by record warmth in Western Europe, including a searing heat wave that reached the Arctic and culminated in one of the most significant glacier melts ever recorded in Greenland. In July alone, the Greenland ice sheet released 197 billion tons of water into the North Atlantic—enough to raise global sea levels by 0,5 millimeters, or 0,02 inches.

Alaska also experienced the warmest month in the history of observations. In this region and throughout the Arctic, simultaneous and massive forest fires erupted, which consumed millions of hectares of area and led to an amazing amount of greenhouse gases.

On the subject: The strongest heat in the history of Alaska: glaciers are melting, forests are burning, birds are massively dying

In Canada, a military installation in Alert, Nunavut—the northernmost permanently inhabited place on Earth—recorded 14 degrees Fahrenheit (69,8 Celsius) on July 21, breaking the record set in 1956 of 44,6 degrees Fahrenheit ( 7 Celsius).

In Belgium, one zoo fed its tigers chickens frozen in blocks of ice. In Paris, local officials created impromptu “cold stores” in every district where people could find air conditioning and cold water.

In some parts of Germany, authorities were forced to reduce speed limits on the autobahn because of concerns that motorways could suffer from thermal damage. In Berlin, people took matters into their own hands, distributing on social networks maps showing the location of air-conditioned public spaces. One of the companies that installed air conditioners had to turn off the phones because of the huge flow of calls.

Farmer Damodhar Ughade, a cotton grower in a village in western India, called it a nightmare. Although droughts due to protracted monsoons are not uncommon in this region, this year has been the worst since 1972, when dozens of people left their arid villages and migrated to cities. When the temperature rose to 39 degrees Celsius, the Ughade fields dried up, his livestock died of starvation, and drinking water ran out in the village.

The lack of water forced women to go to other villages, carrying clay pots on their heads, in search of water. Men rented small vehicles and transported containers to neighboring cities to buy water. The deficit was so severe that there wasn’t enough water to water the oxen. According to the man, about 15 people died in the village.

On the subject: "No one expected it to be so fast": how climate change is destroying US cities

22-year-old English resident Andrea D'Aleo works as a shuttle bus on the River Cam, the main river that flows through Cambridge, a picturesque university town 60 miles north of London. According to Andrea, large umbrellas are usually used here to protect people from heavy rains, but in July people used them to protect themselves from the sun.

“It was difficult,” said D’Aleo, who works as a tour guide. “I was talking to a bunch of umbrellas while dying in the sun.”

Four years ago in Paris, world leaders committed themselves to do everything possible to prevent the globe from heating up to more than 3,6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), with the goal of maintaining a temperature of no more than 2,4 degrees Fahrenheit (1,5 degrees Celsius) ) compared to pre-industrial levels.

But the commitments made by countries in Paris are too modest to achieve these goals. Last week, when the head of the United Nations recognized the likelihood that the world had just experienced the hottest month in its history, he begged national leaders to take such aggressive actions that could lead the world on a more stable trajectory.

“This year alone we have recorded temperature records from New Delhi to Anchorage, from Paris to Santiago, from Adelaide to the Arctic Circle,” Guterres said. “If we don't take action on climate change now, these extreme weather events will be just the tip of the iceberg. And this iceberg is also melting quickly.”

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