It is "increasingly likely" 2024 will be the hottest year on record, despite July ending a 13-month streak of monthly temperature records, the EU's climate monitor said.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service said last month was the second warmest on record books going back to 1940, only slightly cooler than July 2023.
Between June 2023 and June 2024, each month eclipsed its own temperature record for the time of year.
"The streak of record-breaking months has come to an end, but only by a whisker," said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus.
Last month the global average temperature was 16.91 degrees Celsius, only 0.04C below July 2023, according to the service's monthly bulletin.
But "the overall context hasn't changed, our climate continues to warm," said Ms Burgess.
"The devastating effects of climate change started well before 2023 and will continue until global greenhouse gas emissions reach net zero," she said.
From January to July global temperatures were 0.70C above the 1991-2020 average.
This anomaly would need to drop significantly over the rest of this year for 2024 not to be hotter than 2023 - "making it increasingly likely that 2024 is going to be the warmest year on record", the service said.
July 2024 was 1.48C warmer than the estimated average temperatures for the month during the period 1850-1900, before the world started to rapidly burn fossil fuels.
This has translated into punishing heat for hundreds of millions of people.
Earth experienced its two hottest days on record with global average temperatures at a virtual tie-on 22 and 23 July reaching 17.6C, according to Copernicus data.
The Mediterranean was gripped by a heatwave scientists said would have been "virtually impossible" without global warming as China and Japan sweated through their hottest July on record.
Record-breaking rainfall pummelled Pakistan, wildfires ravaged western US states and Hurricane Beryl left a trail of destruction as it swept from the Caribbean to the southeast of the United States.
Temperatures for the oceans, which absorb 90% of the excess heat caused by human activities, were also the second warmest on record for the month of July.
Average sea surface temperatures were 20.88C last month, only 0.01C below July 2023.
This marked the end of a 15-month period of tumbling heat records for the oceans.
However, scientists at Copernicus noted that "air temperatures over the ocean remained unusually high over many regions" despite a swing from the El Niño weather pattern that helped fuel a spike in global temperatures to its opposite La Niña, which has a cooling effect.
On Wednesday, World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Celeste Saulo reflected on a year of "widespread, intense and extended heatwaves".
"This is becoming too hot to handle," she said.
