July set to be hottest month on record, UN, EU agencies say

July is set to be the hottest month on record globally as heat waves sweep through North America, Asia and Europe, United Nations and European Union agencies said Thursday.

July 2019 was the previous hottest month on record, as Earth's average global temperature was 61.9 degrees Fahrenheit. Data from the first 23 days of July 2023 shows Earth's average surface air temperature was 62.51 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service and the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization.

"For the entire planet, it is a disaster. And for scientists, it is unequivocal – humans are to blame. All this is entirely consistent with predictions and repeated warnings. The only surprise is the speed of the change," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

Even with a few days left in July, Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo told The Associated Press they are "virtually certain" July 2023 will be the hottest month since data started being recorded in the 1940s.

"Unless an ice age were to appear all of sudden out of nothing, it is basically virtually certain we will break the record for the warmest July on record and the warmest month on record," Buontempo said. 

Leipzig University researcher Karsten Haustein said that using tree rings, ice cores and other methods, he believes this July is the hottest month in about 120,000 years.

Marco Morano, who runs the ClimateDepot, a project of the climate skeptic nonprofit Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, argues that the weather is not abnormal, Just the News previously reported.

"This [summer] is not outside the bounds of normal weather, I’m sorry," he said.

Madeleine Hubbard is an international correspondent for Just the News. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.