July 'virtually certain' to be world's warmest month on record

Amid blistering heatwaves, July is "virtually certain" to be the world's warmest month on record, scientists say.

So hot has the month been to date that researchers are confident the 2019 record will be broken, even with several days to go.

Some experts believe that July might well be the warmest month in the past 120,000 years.

Scientists agree the extra heat is mainly linked to fossil fuel use.

Researchers are not surprised that July is set to break the current record for the warmest month as there have been plenty of indications in recent weeks that the world is seeing far greater levels of heating.

The world's warmest day occurred on 6 July, and the hottest 23 days ever recorded were all this month, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Their provisional average temperature for the first 25 days of the month is 16.95C, which is well above the 16.63C figure for the whole of July 2019.