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We hear about climate change pretty much every day now. We see pictures of floods, fires and heatwaves on TV news. Scientists have just announced that July was the hottest month ever recorded. The scientists are from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the USA. A spokesperson from NOAA said: "July is typically the world's warmest month of the year, but July 2021 outdid itself as the hottest July and hottest month ever." NOAA said Earth's land and ocean surface temperature in July was 0.93 degree Celsius higher than the 20th-century average of 15.8 degrees Celsius. The Northern Hemisphere was 1.54 degrees Celsius hotter than average.
The NOAA spokesperson said this new record was worrying. He said: "In this case, first place is the worst place to be." The announcement from NOAA comes a week after a 4,000-page report on climate change from the United Nations. Its report is from the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It clearly stated that humans had changed the climate. It wrote: "It is [clear] that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land." A total of 234 scientists from 66 countries worked on the report. It warns that extreme weather will continue to get worse. It says "every region" will experience "multiple changes" in weather, like sweltering heat and flooding.
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