Story highlights This July was hotter than July 2016, when the planet experienced extreme warming

"July has rewritten climate history," the World Meteorological Organization warns

(CNN) July 2019 has replaced July 2016 as the hottest month on record, with meteorologists saying that global temperatures marginally exceeded the previous record.

The European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Programme, which analyzes temperature data from around the planet, said that July was around 0.56 °C warmer than the global average temperature between 1981-2010.

That's slightly hotter than July 2016, when the world was in the throes of one of the strongest El Niño events on record

El Niño events are characterized by warming of the ocean waters in the Pacific Ocean and have a pronounced warming effect on the Earth's average temperature.

Though there was a weak El Niño in place during the first part of 2019, it is transitioning to a more neutral phase, making the extreme July temperatures even more alarming.