September this year was 0.05C hotter than September last year, which itself had set previous record for being the hottest September ever. Copernicus, the European Union’s Earth observation programme, said yesterday that the warmth in the Siberian Arctic continues to be well above average while also confirming that Arctic sea ice is at its second lowest extent since satellite records began. Scientists say this is a clear indication that emissions from human society are driving up temperatures across the world with this year also projected to become the warmest on record for Europe. The overall increased temperatures contributed to the wildfires in California and Australia and also had a hand in the torrential downpours that inundated the south of France with over half a metre of rain in a day. The French Met office- Météo-France- said that while such a downpour is expected once in a 100-year time period, they’ve experienced two such downpours in a month.
Samantha Burgess, the deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service said, “Climate and weather are highly variable. But we predicted that these sort of events would happen, given our effect on the climate.”
Meteorologists say that while weather records are always being broken in a natural way, they’re disturbed by some of the new extremes caused in the recent past.