NASA Declares June 2023 the Hottest Month on Record

NASA has recognized June 2023 as the hottest month on record, according to an analysis of global temperatures.

The GISTEMP, NASA's global temperature analysis, is compiled from data collected by weather stations, Antarctic research stations, as well as instruments on ships and ocean buoys. Scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analyse all these measurements to account for data uncertainties and maintain a consistent method for calculating the global average surface temperature difference for each year.

For the third consecutive month, the global surface ocean temperature has set a record. Smoke plumes from the most destructive forest fire season in Canada reached Europe. Antarctica experienced a second consecutive month of record-low sea ice extent.

With nine tropical cyclones worldwide, June 2023 had a global accumulated cyclone energy that was nearly double the monthly average.

Surface temperature measurements from the ground align with satellite data collected since 2002 by NASA's Aqua satellite's atmospheric infrared sounder and other assessments. NASA uses the period from 1951 to 1980 as a baseline to understand how global temperature is changing over time.

Independent studies by the Copernicus Climate Change Service of the European Union and the National Centers for Environmental Information (NOAA) also confirmed that June 2023 was the warmest June in their recorded data.

Globally, June 2023 set the warmest June in NOAA's 174-year record. From the beginning of the year (January to June), the global surface temperature ranked as the third warmest such period in the history of observations. According to NCEI's global annual temperature forecast, it is highly likely (>99.0%) that 2023 will be one of the top 10 warmest years on record, and with a 97% probability, it will rank among the top five hottest.

Temperatures were above average in most parts of South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, as well as in parts of North and South North America, Oceania, Antarctica, and the Arctic.