Global temperatures during the first 11 days of June have hit the highest level on record for the time of the year.
The heat has also caused temperatures to exceed preindustrial levels by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius this month, scientists at the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service warned on Thursday. While the threshold has become symbolic because it's the level set as the lower limit in the 2015 Paris agreement, the goal in that document is for changes in 20 or 30 year averages - which aren't expected to be breached until the early 2030s.
Rising temperatures signal that Europe may be in for another summer of extremely hot weather, while other parts of the globe grapple with the return of the El Niño phenomenon. That has the potential to generate large swings in commodities and energy prices as cooling needs rise while droughts destroy crops and promote the spread of wildfires.
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"The world has just experienced its warmest early June on record," said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. "Every single fraction of a degree matters to avoid even more severe consequences of the climate crisis."
While this has been the first time that the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold has been exceeded in June, it was not the first time that the daily global average temperature rise has been above the level, Copernicus said. Its model combines data from scientists in the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and the U.S., using billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world for its monthly and seasonal forecasts.
Bloomberg’s Jonathan Tirone contributed to this report.