Temperatures off the charts, but more records imminent: WMO
(United Nations News) Global sea surface temperatures reached a record high in May, June, and July – and the warming El Niño weather pattern is only just getting started – experts at the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Monday.
Alarm bells have been rung at the UN agency in particular because of an “unprecedented peak” in sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic.
“The first week of July…could be considered as the warmest period or the warmest week ever recorded”, with a global average temperature close to 17.24 degrees Celsius on 7 July, said Omar Baddour, Chief of Climate Monitoring at WMO.
Unprecedented is new normal
The WMO expert added that daily June temperatures in the North Atlantic had been “dramatically high” compared to usual readings, while Antarctic sea ice levels reached their lowest extent for June since satellite observations began.
At a shocking 17 per cent below average, this year’s readings broke the June 2022 record by a substantial margin and represented “a really dramatic drop in the sea ice extent in the Antarctica” – some 2.6 million square kilometers of lost sea ice.
Read more at: United Nations News
Source: CARICOM TODAY