July has unleashed a searing onslaught of heat, thrusting the world into what some dub the ‘era of global boiling’. 

The month's unrelenting heatwaves have left experts grappling with their thermometers, with leading climate authorities, the World Meteorological Organisation and the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, having sounded an alarm: July's blistering temperatures are rewriting the record books. 

Earth's temperature has surged beyond a critical warming benchmark - the internationally recognised target of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. 

For a weeks, temperatures have outpaced pre-industrial levels by 1.5 degrees, breaking previous records and casting a spotlight on the planet's feverish plight.

Three continents - North America, Europe, and Asia - have been scorched, with nearly 200 million Americans, 60 per cent of the population, grappling with heat advisories and flood alerts. 

“Unless an ice age were to appear all of sudden out of nothing, it is basically virtually certain we will break the record for the warmest July on record and the warmest month on record,” Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo said.

Buontempo’s team calculated an average global temperature of 16.95 degrees Celsius through the initial 23 days of July. This figure shatters the previous record set in July 2019 by nearly one-third of a degree Celsius.

The heat is driven by a blend of human-induced climate change and the natural El Niño phenomenon in the Pacific. 

Notably, ocean warming in the Atlantic has thrown another explosive ingredient into the cauldron. 

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a sobering call to arms for global leaders, particularly those of wealthy nations, urging them to intensify efforts to curtail the emission of heat-trapping gases. 

“The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived,” Guterres starkly declared.