Key Points
- The past week was the world's hottest since records began, analysts say.
- El Niño conditions are heating up the Northern Hemisphere.
- Antarctica is also having an unseasonably hot winter.
This week the planet broke the record for its hottest day not once, not twice, but three times, according to climate analysts.
A record planetary average temperature of 17.01C on Monday was beaten on Tuesday when it was 17.18C — a temperature that was again recorded on Wednesday.
It was again surpassed on Thursday when it was 17.23C, according to the University of Maine's Climate Reanalyzer, which uses satellite data and computer simulations to measure the world's condition.
It also found that for the seven-day period ending Wednesday, the daily average temperature was 0.04C higher than any week in 44 years of record-keeping.
The University of Maine relies on data from the United States' official forecasting body, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which has distanced itself from the University of Maine's analysis.
NOAA said in a statement on Thursday that it could not "validate the methodology or conclusion" and said the type of data used was "not suitable" for actual temperatures and climate records.
But it did acknowledge that record-warm surface temperatures were being recorded at many locations on Earth.
“We recognise that we are in a warm period due to climate change, and combined with El Niño and hot summer conditions, we’re seeing record-warm surface temperatures being recorded at many locations across the globe,” the statement said, according to the Associated Press.
Professor Steven Sherwood at the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre said temperature records will continue to be broken.
He told SBS News it was possible this could be the hottest week in 1,000 or even 100,000 years based on data from ice core samples.
"We probably are going to be seeing high global temperatures for some time to come," he said.
"The inevitable new records are being set and (the global temperature) is trending upwards so they're going to keep being set."
Why was the world so hot this week?
Current high temperatures are due to a combination of and , according to the NOAA.
Another factor is an exceptionally mild winter in the Antarctic. The continent's July temperature record was recently broken with a reading of 8.7C taken at Ukraine's Vernadsky Research base.
Parts of the continent and nearby ocean were 10C to 20C higher than averages from 1979 to 2000.
Antarctica has experienced an exceptionally warm winter. Source: AAP / Ted Scambos/AP
They're becoming "unbearable," Gallant said.
"We saw this type of heat last summer, so this is really becoming a new norm. The fact that it's happening so frequently is also a worrying sign," she said.
Ocean temperatures are also "through the roof" compared to last century, Gallant said.
"If we compared them to kind of averages taken at the start of the 21st century, they may only be a bit warmer, just because the whole system is heating up and heating up quickly," she said.
Can Australia expect a record-hot spring and summer in 2023?
The Bureau of Meteorology has not officially forecast that El Niño will hit Australia later this year, but many climate scientists are anticipating it will.
This would bring a pattern of hot, dry conditions and likely record high temperatures in spring and possibly summer.
It's a given that more records will be broken locally and globally, according to Sherwood.
"We should really be talking about the progress that we're making on decarbonisation," he said.
"Which is the thing that we really have to do to stop this from just continuing for decades and decades, which we don't want."
Climate Council research director Simon Bradshaw told SBS News that the world is now heading into "uncharted territory".
"We risk pushing the climate system into conditions that humans have never lived through before and in many ways we risk the habitability of large parts of the planet," Bradshaw said.
It's another "urgent call" to be doing far more to drive down emissions in order to protect communities in Australia and around the world, he said.
"This is a sign that we have to do everything possible to be driving down emissions, dealing with climate change, and also really being prepared for what's coming."
