If you thought last month was a scorcher, you were right.
July was, in fact, the hottest month ever recorded on Earth since scientists began charting it 140 years ago.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said Thursday that the average daily July high topped 62 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.71 degrees warmer than the 20th century average of 60.4 F. for the month.
Because July is generally the warmest month on the calendar, meteorologists say this means it also set a new all-time monthly record, going back to 1880.
The previous one-month record was set in July 2016, a year that is likely to remain the warmest on record, NOAA says, despite the killer heat wave that struck much of Europe, including France, Germany and Britain, this summer.
Deadly heat also struck much of the eastern half of the U.S. in July — “from Kansas to Ohio and North Carolina to New Hampshire,” says ABC News.
“The record temperatures notched up in July were accompanied with other major landmarks,” reports the Associated Press. “Average Arctic sea ice, for example, was almost 20% below average in July, less even than the previous historic low of July 2012.”
“On the last day of July,” reports CBS News, “the heat wave moved from Europe to Greenland, melting its ice sheets at dramatic rates. Eleven billion tons of ice melted across the country in just one day — its biggest melt of the season.”
Over the whole month, roughly 197 billion tons of Greenland ice melted into the Atlantic Ocean, a climate scientist with the Danish Meteorological Institute told CBS — about 36 percent more than in an average year.
“Scientists continue to warn that human activity is heating the planet at a dangerous rate, and high temperatures pose a more lethal threat to humans than any other type of extreme weather event,” CBS says.
