This summer tied with last year’s for Japan’s hottest on record, with the three months between June and August being 1.76 degrees Celsius hotter than average, the Meteorological Agency said Monday.
The second-hottest summer was in 2010, when it was 1.08 C higher than average, illustrating the extent of the heat this year and last as well as the upward creep in temperatures due to climate change. National records began in 1898.
Western Japan, which includes Osaka Prefecture, and the Okinawa and Amami islands experienced their hottest summers since regional records began in 1946 — with disparities of 1.4 C and 0.9 C, respectively, compared with the 1991-2020 average, a period when warming was already well underway. Meanwhile, eastern Japan, which includes cities such as Tokyo, saw temperatures that were 1.7 C higher than the average.
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