NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� After 13 months of what felt like an endless breaking of heat records, the streak came to an end last month 鈥� just barely. The European climate agency Copernicus said Thursday that July 2024鈥檚 average heat just missed surpassing . While the slightly cooler month is good news and could provide some minor relief for people exposed to extreme heat, scientists warned that the root cause of the rising temperatures, climate change, remains the same.
Here are five takeaways from the 13-month heat streak that just ended:
Extremes will continue
One factor in the slight cooling is the ebbing of El Nino, a naturally occurring pattern of warming in part of the Pacific that shifts weather patterns around the world. But even if that helps avoid more records being broken soon, the upward trend of temperatures won鈥檛 stop. That is because the driver of global warming, the release of greenhouse gases from the burning of fuels like oil, gas and coal, continues all but unabated. The upshot: extreme weather events like , and prolonged will continue.
Hot oceans
Sometimes lost in all the focus on the heat around us is how warm the oceans are. Oceans have absorbed huge quantities of CO2, making them key climate regulators. Beyond that, warm oceans have devastating consequences, from the die-off of fish and other sea animals to creating prime conditions for powerful hurricanes. Ocean temperatures have risen so much that a few months ago scientists said the world was on the brink of the worst in history. This week, a new study found that temperatures in the Great Barrier Reef, off the cost of Australia, were the warmest they had been .
1.5 not likely 鈥渁live鈥�
Going back to the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world set a goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) since the 1850s. In recent years, environmentalists to politicians have used the slogan 鈥渒eep 1.5 alive鈥� in hopes of rallying governments to enact policy changes that would sharply reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. While the goal will no doubt continue to be discussed, such as during the annual U.N. climate conference in Azerbaijan later this year, the last 13 months have shown that keeping temperatures under that . Warming is around 1.2 Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) globally and parts of the world have already surpassed 1.5 increase.
Governments scrambling
The heat of the last 13 months exposed just how much governments around the world are struggling to help citizens adapt to . The challenge is most acute in that don鈥檛 have the infrastructure or resources to keep citizens from being exposed to extreme heat, which attacks organs and can eventually . But developed nations are . Most deaths ; having air conditioning doesn鈥檛 matter if people don鈥檛 turn it on because of high , for example.
Solutions in focus
Scientists say the warm temperatures have underscored the urgency to decrease the release of greenhouse gases from all aspects of human life, from transportation to heating and cooling. Technologies to do that are well established: solar, wind, hydropower and geothermal, among others. In 2023, the world hit a milestone: from renewable sources. In last year鈥檚 U.N. climate talks in Dubai, the international community also agreed to from fossil fuels toward renewable energy sources. While significant strides are being made, huge obstacles to the green energy transition remain, from continued investment in fossil fuels like natural gas to a need for trillions of dollars needed in investments.
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Peter Prengaman, The Associated Press
