Earth just had its hottest summer on record, U.N. says, warning "climate breakdown has begun"

United Nations — "Earth just had its hottest three months on record," the United Nations weather agency said Wednesday.

"The dog days of summer are not just barking, they are biting," warned U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a statement coinciding with the release of the latest data from the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) by the World Meteorological Organization.

"Our planet has just endured a season of simmering — the hottest summer on record. Climate breakdown has begun," Guterres said.

The WMO's Secretary-General, Petteri Taalas, issued an urgent assessment of the data, saying: "The northern hemisphere just had a summer of extremes — with repeated heatwaves fueling devastating wildfires, harming health, disrupting daily lives and wreaking a lasting toll on the environment."

Taalas said that in the southern hemisphere, meanwhile, the seasonal shrinkage of Antarctic Sea ice "was literally off the charts, and the global sea surface temperature was once again at a new record."

The WMO report, which includes the Copernicus data as well information from five other monitoring organizations around the world, showed it was the hottest August on record "by a large margin," according to the U.N. agency, both on land and in the global monthly average for sea surface temperatures.

The WMO cited the U.K.'s government's Met Office weather agency, which has warned there is "a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years will be the warmest on record."

Copernicus data already puts 2023 on track to be the hottest year on record overall. Right now it's tailing only 2016 in the temperature record books, but 2023 is far from over yet.

"Eight months into 2023, so far we are experiencing the second warmest year to date, only fractionally cooler than 2016, and August was estimated to be around 1.5°C warmer than pre-industrial levels," Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said.

"We can still avoid the worst of climate chaos," said the U.N.'s Guterres, adding: "We don't have a moment to lose."

In:
• Climate Change
• Severe Weather
• United Nations

Pamela Falk

Pamela Falk is the CBS News correspondent covering the United Nations, and an international lawyer.

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