July was the hottest month the world has experienced since record-keeping began more than a century ago, according to data released Monday. The Copernicus Climate Change Service, a program of the European Union, calculated that last month surpassed previous records set in July 2016. Last month was just 1 degree above the 1981 to 2010 average, and beat July 2016 by about 0.07 degrees. Scientists believe 2019 could be the hottest year and that the period from 2015 to 2019 will go down as the warmest five-year period on record. “July has rewritten climate history, with dozens of new temperature records at [the] local, national, and global level,” said Petteri Taalas, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization. “This is not science fiction. It is the reality of climate change. It is happening now, and it will worsen in the future without urgent climate action.”