July may be hottest month on record: NASA expert

WASHINGTON: July may be Earth’s hottest month in thousands of years, according to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) climate expert Gavin Schmidt.

Schmidt, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, reportedly made the announcement during a meeting at the agency’s Washington headquarters. Agency climate experts and leaders, including NASA administrator Bill Nelson and senior climate adviser Kate Calvin, were also present.

The meeting comes during a summer that has put the climate crisis at the forefront of people’s minds. Heatwaves have swept all across southern Europe in unprecedented temperatures. Floods have devastated New England, and Canadian wildfires have reached US cities.

“There has been a decade-on-decade increase in temperatures throughout the last four decades,” Schmidt said.

NASA data shows that Earth experienced its hottest June on record. Schmidt said that according to his calculations based on various models, there is a 50 to 80 per cent chance that this heat will make 2023 the hottest year on record.

Scientists anticipate that 2024 will be even hotter than 2023, as the El Niño weather pattern, known to boost global temperatures, will likely peak towards the end of this year.

The last El Niño occurred from 2014 to 2016. Global temperature records broke in both of those years, making 2016 the last hottest year on record.

Senior climate advisor Calvin said at the meeting that “what we know from science is that human activity and principally greenhouse gas emissions are unavoidably causing the warming that we’re seeing on our planet.”

NASA is now highlighting its role as a climate agency as much as being a space agency. They have launched initiatives that they said can help governments better deal and prepare for the impact of the climate crisis.

The Earth Information Center is its newest project. It will make climate data from 25 satellites available to view in real time.

An exhibit in the headquarters opened to the public last week. Next week an online version will also launch on NASA’s website.

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