Sunday is The hottest day on record According to data from the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, on Earth:

The global average temperature reached 17.09 degrees Celsius (about 62.76 degrees Fahrenheit), slightly surpassing the previous record of 17.08 degrees Celsius recorded on July 6, 2023.

“We are now in truly uncharted territory and there is no doubt that new records will be broken in the coming months and years as the climate continues to warm,” Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement.

So far, both July this year and July 2023 have been much warmer than the 1991 to 2020 average, according to Copernicus data. Before last year, the hottest day on record was August 12, 2016, when the average temperature reached 16.8 degrees.

Last week, a heatwave that hit southern and central Europe reportedly sparked wildfires in southern Italy, forcing the Greek Ministry of Culture to close the Acropolis for several hours. Associated Press.

In the United States, High temperature warning Six states, including Arizona, California and Montana, enacted special heat stroke laws on Tuesday. Officials believe more than 300 people have died from heat stroke in Maricopa County, Arizona, so far this year.

Last month was the hottest June on record globally, breaking records for the 13th consecutive month of record high temperatures. Copernicus Service Monitoring.

“As it gets hotter, we're going to have to significantly recalibrate how we live our lives,” said Bharat Venkat, director of the UCLA Thermal Lab, which studies the effects of rising temperatures.

As a more personal example, Venkat said he took his dog for a walk at a local mall this summer because the sidewalk was “really hot and I was worried his paws would get burned.”

He stressed that at a larger, more severe level, “many of these adverse effects overlap with existing social inequalities.”

People with underlying medical conditions are more susceptible to heatstroke. People who work outdoors, like delivery people or farmers, face a bigger problem. Certain structures, like prisons and food trucks, retain more heat, making them especially hot for people inside.

Global average temperatures typically peak between late June and early August because this is the hottest time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, which contains most of the world's land mass and population.

In the Southern Hemisphere, average temperatures are also rising due to melting Antarctic sea ice, the Copernicus Service reported.

This year has been particularly warm because of an El Niño weather pattern, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist and climate writer at Yale University's Climate Connections.

La Niña is Estimated Arrival There should be a moderate cooling effect over the next few months.

But overall temperatures will continue to rise and records will continue to be broken, Henson said.