June was by far the warmest on record in Europe and, by a smaller amount, beat the global record for the month, per a new analysis from Europe's Copernicus Climate Change Service.
By the numbers: Copernicus said the late June European heat wave, caused by an air mass that originated over the Sahara Desert, "led to the month as a whole being around 1°C above the previous record for June, set in 1999."
- Copernicus, which provides data to the European Union, also reports that June's global average temperature was 0.1°C higher than June of 2016.
Why it matters: A separate analysis by a science collaborative called World Weather Attribution finds that human-induced warming has made this kind of heat wave much more likely and severe compared to the beginning of the 20th century.
- "For the average over France we find that the probability has increased by at least a factor five. ... However, the observations show it could be much higher still, a factor 100 or more," per the report.
Go deeper, via AP: June was Europe’s hottest on record as climate change bites
