Sunday, July 21 was the hottest day ever recorded globally in 100,000 years according to the EU climate monitoring service Copernicus, warning that the Climate Crisis is accelerating.

According to preliminary data from Copernicus’ ERA5 dataset, July 21 was the hottest day in Earth's recorded history, with an average global surface air temperature of 17.09°C (62.76°F).

The temperatures were significantly higher than any temperature for millennia, according to paleoclimatologists, who study Earth's natural environmental records recorded in sediments at the bottom of the oceans and preserved in the rings of trees, amongst other sources.

Last year was already the hottest on record as temperatures exceeded the long-term pre-industrial average benchmark by more than 1.5C in every month of the year in 2023. However, July 21 sets a new all-time high for the mid-summer peak in temperatures, above last year’s peak.

However, 2023 didn’t breach the 1.5C limit set by the Paris Agreement as when seasonal fluctuations, caused by weather phenomena such as El Niño, the adjusted average temperature was 1.3C. The 1.5C limit is considered breached only if the adjusted temperatures, taking out seasonal fluctuations, is above 1.5C for three years in a row.

And the world is rapidly moving towards that point. As bne IntelliNews reported, six of the nine planetary boundaries have already been breached, up from three in 2009, and the major developed countries like the EU and the US have already used up their carbon budget – the amount of emissions they are allowed to emit under the terms of the Paris Agreement and still leave a 50% possibility of staying under the 1.5C temperature rise threshold.

At the same time the retreat of the global ice caps has also accelerated, with the level of the ice’s retreat exceeding five standard deviations from its normal fluctuations in the changing seasons.

In statistics, the standard deviation is a measure of the amount of variation of a random variable expected from its average value, which is usually described by the Gaussian, or “normal distribution”, curve. Typically, about half the events are within one standard deviation with up to 95% within two deviations. An event that is five standard deviations from the mean value is a significant outlier and right at the very edge of the normal distribution curve - what could be described as "almost off the chart." 

“As if setting a global surface temperature record wasn't enough for one day, for the first time this year Antarctic sea-ice extent is more than 2 million km² below the 1991-2020 daily mean, now at -5.35 standard deviations,” climate observer Professor Eliot Jacobson said in a tweet.