Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Earth just broiled to its hottest month in recorded history, as July 2016 was the hottest month in the world for over the past 136 years.

The American space agency calculated that July 2016 was 0.84 degrees Celsius warmer than the 1950-1980 global average.

Even after the fading of a strong El Nino, which significantly affects the Earth's climate, this July burst global temperature records, according to NASA.

NASA chief climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said that that's clearly hotter than the previous months, about 0.18 degrees warmer than the previous record of July 2011 and July 2015, which were so close they were said to be in a tie for the hottest month on record.

July is typically the planet's hottest month of the year due to the fact that the Northern Hemisphere has more land area than the Southern Hemisphere, making Northern Hemisphere summer the warmest month.

Earlier Head of the ANAS Geography Institute Maharram Hasanov said that closer to the end of the month the temperature was 1-2 degrees higher than long-term average temperature for July in Azerbaijan.

This summer, especially in the first weeks of August, Azerbaijan also experienced terrible heat, as the mercury has exceeded +42 degrees C. Thus, 2016 virtually beat 2015 for the dubious distinction of the hottest year on record.

The national forecasters predicted that the temperature in Azerbaijan would increase after July 25 and abnormal hot weather would continue until 15 August.

However, despite hot August, first three weeks of this July in Azerbaijan has become relatively cool for the first time since 2000.

Asif Verdiyev, Chief Metrologist of the Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry earlier said that the temperature this July in Baku was 1-2 degrees lower of climate norm, noting that northern and north-westerly winds contributed to this.

In July 2016, the highest temperature in Baku was 37.5 degrees Celsius on July 18, while the lowest temperature was recorded on July 13 -- 19.2 degrees C.

The studies covering period from 1991 to 2012 showed that temperature throughout Azerbaijan increased by 0.5-0.6 C, while precipitation decreased by 15-89 mm.

Many scientists believe that the reason for warming on the planet is greenhouse gas emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels. However, scientists have not reached consensus on the causes of climate change, although the change itself is obvious to them.

Doug Smith, a Met Office expert on long-term forecasting earlier said that they cannot say exactly how warm the weather will get but there is no doubt the overall upward trend of temperatures will continue. “We cannot say exactly how hot 2018, 2019 or 2020 will be. That will depend on other variables. But the general trend is going to be upwards.”

Fortunately, the hottest days are over and summer is coming to it's natural end, as the weather in Azerbaijan will be changeable cloudy, occasionally gloomy, mainly rainless this week.

The temperature is expected to be +20-24˚C at night, +29-34˚C in the afternoon in Absheron peninsula, +22-24˚C at night, +31-33˚C in the afternoon in Baku.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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