Monday was the hottest day on Earth — with the possible exception of Sonoma County

Monday was the hottest day ever recorded on Earth, though it may have been hard to tell in Sonoma County, which was about 20 degrees cooler than the previous day.

Nevertheless, the average worldwide temperature soared to over 62.62 degrees for the first time in recorded history, according to an analysis by the University of Maine using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The previous record was 62.46 degrees, which occurred on both Aug. 14, 2016, and July 24, 2022.

"This is not a milestone we should be celebrating," climate scientist Friederike Otto told Reuters news agency.

"It's a death sentence for people and ecosystems," said Otto, a senior lecturer with the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Britain's Imperial College London.

Although the NOAA data begins in 1979, other data sets that recorded earlier history indicate that Monday was “warmer than any point since instrumental measurements began, and probably for a long time before that as well,” Robert Rohde, lead scientist for nonprofit environmental data science organization Berkeley Earth, said in a tweet.

“Global warming is leading us into an unfamiliar world,” Rohde added.

Great Britain just experienced its hottest June ever, and record heat waves have been reported around the globe, including an Antarctic research base that just recorded its hottest July temperature ever.

In general, temperatures in June 2023 were about 0.272 degrees above the former record high in 2019, according to Berkeley Earth scientist Zeke Hausfather.

Scientists attribute the heat to climate change and the emergence of El Niño, a natural climate phenomenon that is known to bring warmer temperatures.

El Niño is the warm phase of the El Niño-La Niña Southern Oscillation pattern, which begins with warmer sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator. The phase, which occurs every two to seven years, returned in early June, according to a news release from NOAA.

Michelle L'Heureux, climate scientist at the Climate Prediction Center, said in the release that climate change can also “exacerbate or mitigate certain impacts related to El Niño.”

El Niño, L'Heureux said, could lead to new temperature high records, particularly in areas that already experience above-average temperatures.

Brayden Murdock, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Monterey office, said Sonoma County likely had little to contribute to Monday’s worldwide record.

Interior areas in the North Bay ranged from the 70s to 80s Monday, with Santa Rosa at 76 degrees, which are standard temperatures for this time of year, Murdock said. Some locations were even slightly below normal.

“The reason why yesterday might have been the hottest day on Earth, as a total, probably was not us in particular,” he said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been revised from an earlier version to correct an error in a reference to the degree-change over the previous global record high temperature in 2019.

You can reach Staff Writer Madison Smalstig at madison.smalstig@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @madi.smals.