NEW DELHI: Last month was the hottest June on record going back 174 years, according to an independent analysis by scientists including those from NASA and NOAA.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also found that it is virtually certain (above 99 per cent) that 2023 will rank among the 10-warmest years on record and a 97 per cent chance it will rank among the top five.

The El Nino climate pattern is one reason temperatures are so hot right now, NOAA said.

The cyclic pattern causes hotter than normal water in the Pacific Ocean, and the extra heat alters weather around the world and raises global temperatures.

June this year was the warmest globally at just over 0.5 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average exceeding June 2019, the previous record, by a substantial margin, according to European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Globally, June 2023 set a record for the warmest June in the 174-year NOAA record.

The year-to-date (January-June) global surface temperature ranked as the third warmest such period on record, it said.

Scientists at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) found that the June global surface temperature was 1.05 degrees Celsius above the 20th-century average of 15.5 C.

This marked the first time a June temperature exceeded 1 degree C above the long-term average, NOAA said.

"Weak El Nino conditions that emerged in May continued to strengthen in June, as above-average sea surface temperatures returned to the equatorial Pacific Ocean," it added.