PARIS, France (AFP) — The 2024 northern summer saw the highest global temperatures on record, beating 2023’s high and making this year likely Earth’s hottest ever recorded, the European Union’s (EU) climate monitor said Friday.

The data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service followed a season of heatwaves around the world that scientists said were intensified by human-driven climate change.

Extreme weather struck around the globe — with some 1,300 dead during extreme heat at the hajj in Mecca, intense heat testing India’s economy and electric system, and wildfire raging in parts of the western United States.

“During the past three months of 2024, the globe has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day on record, and the hottest boreal summer on record,” Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, said in a report.

“This string of record temperatures is increasing the likelihood of 2024 being the hottest year on record.”

The average global temperature at the Earth’s surface was 16.82C in August, according to Copernicus, which draws on billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations.

The June and August global temperature broke through the level of 1.5C above the pre-industrial average — a key threshold for limiting the worst effects of climate change.

Human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet, raising the likelihood and intensity of climate disasters such as droughts, fires and floods.

Heat was exacerbated in 2023 and early 2024 by the cyclical weather phenomenon El Nino, though Copernicus scientist Julien Nicolas told AFP its effects were not as strong as they sometimes are.

Meanwhile the contrary cyclical cooling phenomenon, known as La Nina, has not yet started, he said.

A complete assessment of the impact of the temperature extremes will take time, but a study published in mid-August estimated that 30,000-65,000 people in Europe died from heat-related illnesses in 2023, mainly among the elderly.