Monday was the hottest day ever globally, beating a record set the day before, as countries around the world from Japan to Bolivia to the United States continue to feel the heat, according to the European climate change service.
Provisional satellite data published by Copernicus on Wednesday shows that Monday was 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.1 degree Fahrenheit) hotter than Sunday.
Climate scientists say it's plausible that this is the warmest it has been in 120,000 years because of human-caused climate change. While scientists cannot be certain that Monday was the very hottest day throughout that period, average temperatures have not been this high since long before humans developed agriculture.
But it's a difficult determination to make, said University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann, because data from tree-rings, corals and ice cores don't go back that far.
The temperature rise in recent decades is in line with what climate scientists projected would happen if humans kept burning fossil fuels at an increasing rate.
''We are in an age where weather and climate records are frequently stretched beyond our tolerance levels, resulting in insurmountable loss of lives and livelihoods,'' Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.
''Deaths from high temperatures show how catastrophic it is not to take stronger action on cutting CO2,'' which is the main heat-trapping gas, Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald said in an email.
Copernicus' preliminary data shows the global average temperature Monday was 17.15 degrees Celsius (62.87 degrees Fahrenheit). The previous record before this week was set just a year ago. Before last year, the previous recorded hottest day was in 2016 when average temperatures were at 16.8 degrees Celsius (62.24 degrees Fahrenheit).
