Scientists have concluded that this year’s extreme heat would’ve been almost impossible without human-caused global warming.

2020 is likely to become one of the hottest years on record, surpassing 2016, according to data collected by Carbon Brief.

With the data now in for the first half of the year, Carbon Brief estimates that 2020 is most likely to be either the warmest or second warmest year on record, depending on the approach used to calculate global temperatures.

Global surface temperatures have been exceptionally warm over the first half of 2020, tying with the record warmth seen in 2016.

This is particularly remarkable because El Niño conditions have been largely “neutral” in 2020 to-date, unlike 2016 which was considerably boosted by an extremely strong El Niño event in the tropical Pacific.

Additionally, June 2020 was the warmest or second warmest June since records began in 1850 across most of the surface temperature datasets analysed by Carbon Brief.

A number of extreme heat events characterised the first six months of 2020; Australia saw record heat, while Siberia has experienced staggering heat for much of the first six months of the year – with northern Siberia around 7C warmer than the preindustrial period. This level of extreme heat would have been almost impossible in the absence of human-caused global warming, scientists recently concluded.