World’s hottest day record smashed for second day in a row on July 22

Just a day after the world's hottest day ever was recorded, Monday, July 22 marks the hottest day on record. The record was based on preliminary data from a European Union monitoring agency.

According to Copernicus Climate Change Service, the European Union's Earth Observation Programme which has been tracking patterns since 1940, the global average surface air temperature has risen to 17.15 degrees Celsius, 0.06 degrees more than that of Sunday's.

The previous record was set in July 2023 when four consecutive days in a row recorded the hottest day. The global average surface air temperature stood at 17.08 degrees Celsius. Before that, August 2016 witnessed the hottest day on record.

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"This past Monday might have set a new global record for warmest absolute global average temperature ever — by that I mean going back tens of thousands of years," said Karsten Haustein, a climate scientist at Leipzig University in Germany, as reported by Reuters.

Cities in Japan, Indonesia and China have witnessed record-breaking temperatures in recent days. Gulf countries are also experiencing stifling heat indexes and high humidity with mercury going over 60 degrees Celsius. Parts of Europe have recorded temperatures exceeding 45 degrees Celsius.

According to scientists, the reason for these records is climate change which is growing with the burning of fossil fuels. Last year's records were resultant of climate change combined with the El Nino climate pattern, which is the unusual warming of surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean. However, that is not the case this year.

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Haustein believes it was "remarkable" that the record is still being broken even though the world is not experiencing the El Nino effect and is in a neutral state.

(With inputs from agencies)