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Earth is on the boil as July 2021 turns hottest month ever in last 142 years

According to NOAA global land and ocean temperatures were 1.67F above the 20th-century average of 60.4F, making it the hottest July since records began 142 years ago

July was the world's hottest month ever recorded over the past 142 years, according to data compiled by a US federal scientific and regulatory agency.

The figures show that the combined land and ocean-surface temperature was 0.93C (1.68F) above the 20th Century average of 15.8C (60.4F).

It is the highest temperature since record-keeping began 142 years ago. The previous record, set in July 2016, was equalled in 2019 and 2020 which reflects the increasing temperatures in recent years.

The data also showed that July was Asia's hottest month on record, as well as Europe's second hottest after July 2018.

In the Northern Hemisphere, land-surface temperature reached an "unprecedented" 1.54C higher than average, surpassing a previous record set in 2012.

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Experts believe this is due to the long-term impact of climate change.

In a statement, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that July's "unenviable distinction" was a cause for concern.

"This new record adds to the disturbing and disruptive path that climate change has set for the globe," NOAA administrator Rick Spinrad said in a statement.

The combined land and ocean-surface temperature was 0.01C higher than the 2016 record.

The NOAA statement included a map of significant climate "anomalies" in July, which noted that global tropical cyclone activity this year has been unusually high for the number of named storms.

The data appears to reinforce the United Nations report released last month which said that climate change is having an "unprecedented" impact on earth, with some changes likely to be "irreversible for centuries to millennia."

The world's leading climate scientists who authored the report,  have warned that some of the climate changes already set in motion would be "irreversible."

The U.N. climate panel warns that limiting global warming to close to 1.5 degrees Celsius or even 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels "will be beyond reach" in the next two decades without immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

U.N. Secretary-General, António Guterres described the report as "a code red for humanity."

"The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk," Guterres said.

According to the report, since 1970, global surface temperatures have risen faster than in any other 50-year period over the past 2,000 years.