Scientist says we're in ‘uncharted territory’ after world's hottest week on record

A scientists says we're in 'uncharted territory' following the hottest week on record.

While many may assume it's great to have a long hot summer, the truth is that recent record breaking trends do not bode well for the environment, as experts have warned.

And figures released by the World Meteorological Organization have revealed that the last week was the hottest on record for the planet. Yikes.

According to analysis, the global average temperature on 7 July was 17.24C, which is 0.3C higher than the previous record, which was set on 16 August 2016.

In a post to Twitter, the WMO said: "The world just had the hottest week on record, according to preliminary data.

"It follows the hottest June on record, with unprecedented sea surface temperatures and record-low Antarctic sea ice extent. #StateOfClimate."

Twitter/WMO

Reacting to the stark warning, Professor Christopher Hewitt - the WMO director of climate services - said that the planet was in the midst of a meteorological phenomenon called El Niño.

This is when a band of warmer water develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific.

Prof Hewitt said: "The exceptional warmth in June and at the start of July occurred at the onset of the development of El Nino, which is expected to further fuel the heat both on land and in the oceans and lead to more extreme temperatures and marine heatwaves.

"We are in uncharted territory and we can expect more records to fall as El Nino develops further and these impacts will extend into 2024.

"This is worrying news for the planet."

The news comes as it was revealed that extreme heat led to more than 61,000 deaths in Europe last year.

Figures from the French National Institute For Health showed that Italy suffered the highest number of heat-attributable deaths with 18,010 fatalities.

PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images

This was followed by Spain, which recorded 11,324 deaths, and Germany with 8,173.

It also found that 3,469 people died in the UK as a result.

The piece of research, which was published in Nature Medicine, centred on the period of 20 May to 4 September 2022.

But while the figures are deeply troubling, they are still some way off the record of 70,000 deaths, which was set in 2003.

Study author, Joan Ballester Claramunt, said: "The summer of 2003 was an exceptionally rare phenomenon, even when taking into account the anthropogenic warming observed until then.

"This exceptional nature highlighted the lack of prevention plans and the fragility of health systems to cope with climate-related emergencies, something that was to some extent addressed in subsequent years.

"In contrast, the temperatures recorded in the summer of 2022 cannot be considered exceptional, in the sense that they could have been predicted by following the temperature series of previous years, and that they show that warming has accelerated over the last decade."