'Heat is a killer': Experts explain why it matters that heat records were broken this week

"People are going to die and those deaths are preventable", said one public health expert.

Transcript

00:00There's a new record for the hottest day ever recorded on Earth,

00:03with a global average of 17.15 degrees Celsius on Monday.

00:09That's the warmest day since at least 1940, when records began.

00:13Earlier this week, the Copernicus Climate Change Service announced that Sunday set the record.

00:19But just a day later, it was broken again.

00:22The company's director said the pattern with temperatures has been similar all year.

00:27And in all likelihood, especially if you look at the average over the year,

00:31this is probably the last 12 months have been the warmest 12 months in the last 100,000 years or thereabouts.

00:38In addition to the warmer oceans and Antarctica,

00:42the western United States and Canada and eastern Siberia were especially warm in the last few days.

00:49And if it wasn't for Antarctica, it's likely the record would not have been broken.

00:56It's useful to understand how much and how fast the climate is changing.

01:00But ultimately, what is biting us back is not the global mean temperature,

01:05because nobody lives in the global mean.

01:06It's really what's happening in our backyard, what's happening to our rivers, our mountains and so on.

01:12Scientists say the soaring temperatures is likely due to human-caused climate change.