"The era of global boiling has arrived," said António Guterres, the United Nations Secretary-General, as he told a gathering of reporters in New York that July 2023 is set to go down as the hottest month on record. "Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning."

July's searing temperatures have sizzled across the globe. From raging wildfires in Greece, Canada, Algeria and Syria to baking temperatures across the U.S Southwest, Spain, Italy, France and Poland. Temperatures in a northwest China township broke the national record when they soared above 52 degrees Celsius.

The former hottest record was set in July 2019. At the time, it set a benchmark as the warmest temperature noted in the 174-year observational record. This month's mean global temperature is projected to be at least 0.2 degrees warmer than July 2019.

The U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says it will finalise its data in August before confirming July 2023 as the world's hottest month on record.

Scientists believe the world is heading for an El Nino event. El Nino typically delivers warmer temperatures around the world, doubling down on the warming driven by human-caused climate change, which scientists said this week had played an "absolutely overwhelming" role in July's extreme heatwaves.

Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, said it was clear by mid-July it was going to be a record warm month, and provided an "indicator of a planet that will continue to warm as long as we burn fossil fuels."

Research on early, less fine-tuned climate records gathered from things like ice cores and tree rings, suggests the Earth has not been this hot in 120,000 years.

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