Climate | June was globally the warmest in recorded history

Terrestrial the average temperature has been record high for the past year, says the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

Between July last year and June this year, the global average temperature has been a record 0.76 degrees higher than the 1991-2020 average.

In addition, the average temperature has been 1.64 degrees higher compared to the pre-industrial era in the years 1850–1900.

This exceeds the goal set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, according to which the increase in global temperature should be limited to 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial times.

Expiring At the same time, June of this year has been the warmest June in the history of measurements worldwide. Its global average temperature was 16.66 degrees, which is 0.67 degrees higher than the 1991-2020 average.

In Europe, this year’s June was the second warmest on record. The average June temperature in Europe was 1.57 degrees higher than the average June temperature between 1991 and 2020.

In Finland, June was 1.5–3.5 degrees warmer than usual in most of the country.

In Lapland, several observation stations measured differences of up to four degrees compared to the average temperature of the climatic reference period 1991–2020.

Department of Meteorology director general Petteri Taalas considers it alarming that heat records are still being broken.

“The last three summers in Europe have been record hot and dry. The increase in the average temperature has caused a shortage of water, wildfires, the melting of the glaciers in the Alps, problems in agriculture and heat deaths,” says Taalas in the press release.

According to Taalas, Finland’s northern location does not fully protect against the serious effects of widespread and hotter heat and global warming, because the northern regions warm up more strongly than the rest of the world.

A study conducted at the Finnish Meteorological Institute shows that if the Earth were to warm by two degrees compared to pre-industrial times, the number of hot days in Finland at that time would be 4–10 times as great as at the end of the 20th century.