• Beijing-based forecaster says high temperatures to persist in Pakistan, many other countries over next week
• Although this July wasn’t as record-breaking as previous ‘hottest’ months; experts say the reprieve is temporary
ISLAMABAD: The World Meteorological Centre (WMC) in Beijing has warned of impending heatwaves expected to sweep across various parts of the world, including Pakistan, from next week.
The warning comes as European forecasters revealed that this past July was the third-hottest on record — breaking a months-long record setting heat streak.
“Two years after the hottest July on record, the recent streak of global temperature records is over,” Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement.
“But that does not mean climate change has stopped,” he said, adding: “We continue to witness the effects of a warming world”.
“We continued to witness the effect of a warming world in events such as extreme heatwaves and catastrophic floods in July,” Buontempo said.
In July, heavy rains flooded Pakistan, India and China; Canada, Scotland and Greece struggled to tame wildfires intensified by persistent drought; and many nations in Asia and Scandinavia recorded new average highs for the month.
Heatwaves to persist
In its forecast, the WMC said that persistent high temperatures exceeding 38°C have been observed over the past week in West Asia, southern Central Asia, western South Europe, North Africa, Pakistan, southeastern India, central and southern Japan, southwestern United States, and northern Mexico.
“Notably, maximum temperatures exceeded 42°C in parts of West Asia, southern Central Asia, most of North Africa, southern Pakistan, and the southwestern United States, with localized areas surpassing 45°C. Maximum temperatures in southwestern Iran and eastern Iraq locally exceeded 50°C,” it said.
The forecast said that persistent influence from a subtropical high will maintain the heatwaves across most of these areas.
“Maximum temperatures in most of these regions will range between 38 and 40°C, with some areas exceeding 42°C. Specifically, localised temperatures could reach above 45°C in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, western and southern Iran, the southwestern United States, western Algeria, and northern Mauritania,” it said.
Global average temperatures are calculated using billions of satellite and weather readings, both on land and at sea, and the data used by Copernicus extends back to 1940.
Even if July was milder in some places than in previous years, 11 countries experienced their hottest July in at least a half-century, including China, Japan, North Korea, Tajikistan, Bhutan, Brunei and Malaysia,.
Seas overheating
Last month was also the third-hottest July on record for sea surface temperatures.
Locally, however, several ocean records for July were broken: in the Norwegian Sea, in parts of the North Sea, in the North Atlantic west of France and Britain.
The extent of Arctic sea ice was 10 per cent below average, the second lowest for a July in 47 years of satellite observations, virtually tied with the readings of 2012 and 2021.
Diminishing sea ice is a concern not because it adds to sea levels, but because it replaces the snow and ice that reflect almost all the Sun’s energy back into space with deep blue ocean, which absorbs it.
Ninety per cent of the excess heat generated by global warming is absorbed by the oceans.
In Antarctica, sea ice extent is the third lowest on record for this month.
With input from AFP
Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2025
