July was officially the hottest month ever recorded

July 2019 was officially the hottest month ever recorded in human history, a European Union climate agency said on Monday.

After the United Nations said last week that it appeared July would at least match if not exceed the previous record for hottest month, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service released data on Monday showing that July 2019 indeed broke the record, The Washington Post reports.

The previous record for hottest month in recorded history was July 2016, but the Copernicus Climate Change Service data indicated that last month slightly beat it, although the agency noted that it did so "by a margin that is small compared with the typical differences between datasets for previous Julys." The month was "0.56°C warmer than the average July from 1981-2010," the agency also said. The Post reports that NASA will still need to report its data in the coming weeks.

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Last week, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said the period of 2015 through 2019 is on pace to be the hottest five-year period in recorded history, warning about the "climate emergency."

"Preventing irreversible climate disruption is the race of our lives and for our lives," Guterres said. "It is a race we can — and must — win."