The hottest June yet: NASA report finds June 2023 to be hottest recorded

June's heatwave may be incomparable to others - with data compared as far back as the early 1950s.

World global temperature analysis for June, as provided by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (photo credit: NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies)
World global temperature analysis for June, as provided by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies
(photo credit: NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies)

NASA's global temperature analysis revealed that June 2023 was the hottest June on record. GISTEMP, the space organization's measure of global temperature, drawn from a series of recorded temperatures worldwide.

NASA scientists at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York analyzed measurements taken by instruments mounted on ships and ocean buoys. The GISS was able to calculate global averages based on patterns detected by these field-level methods.

Researchers say these methods will help account for uncertainties in the data and to maintain consistent methods for calculating global average surface temperature differences for every year.

Satellite data that has been routinely collected over the last 20 years, since 2002, using the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder on NASA's Aqua satellite. These are not the sole estimates.

What was NASA's basis for comparison?

When determining how to measure and compare historic global temperatures, NASA used the period of 1951 to 1980 as a basis to best understand changing world temperatures throughout the decades.

NASA was not along in this study, according to the space agency. Other analysis included independent ventures by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service and NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. Each individually found June 2023 to be the warmest June to date.

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