No, it wasn’t just you—July 4th was really hot. It was so hot that the earth broke a record we really don’t want to be breaking: It was the hottest day on record for the entire world, ever. The previous hottest day? July 3rd, so you know, at least humans are consistent at ruining things. The University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute has been tracking these things for over 40 years, and well, it’s not good. Per The Hill:
The worldwide average temperature on Tuesday [July 4th] hit 62.92 degrees Fahrenheit, the institute found using data from 1979 onwards from the U.S. National Centers for Climate Prediction.
This surpassed Monday’s [July 3rd] record-breaking temperature of 62.62 degrees Fahrenheit.
OK, so 63-ish degrees Fahrenheit doesn’t sound too warm but keep in mind, this is the average for the entire world. Australia is in its winter right now!
If you live in the U.S., you’re probably not that surprised by this news, as 57 million of us were exposed to “dangerous heat” yesterday. Cool. Awesome.
As if this news isn’t terrifying and exhausting enough, some climate change experts are predicting this is a record that will be broken over the course of this summer, maybe repeatedly. For example, here’s Dr. Robert Rohde, a scientist at Berkley Earth, a non-profit devoted to “environmental data science and analysis“:
The El Niño effect is important here, as the last hottest day on record was Aug. 14, 2016, which occurred during the previous El Niño cycle, something we can look forward to every time El Niño rolls through, according to one scientist. Per The Washington Post:
“When’s the hottest day likely to be? It’s going to be when global warming, El Niño and the annual cycle all line up together. Which is the next couple months,” said Myles Allen, a professor of geosystem science at Oxford University, in a phone interview Wednesday. “It’s a triple whammy.”
You know, we need a light content break because this really sucks, so if you’re of a certain age, the first thing that comes to mind when you see “El Niño” is probably this Chris Farley SNL sketch from 1997:
If not, you’re welcome.
Now that the fun part is out of the way, here’s what El Niño actually is, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s website:
El Niño means Little Boy in Spanish. South American fishermen first noticed periods of unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean in the 1600s. The full name they used was El Niño de Navidad, because El Niño typically peaks around December.
El Niño can affect our weather significantly. The warmer waters cause the Pacific jet stream to move south of its neutral position. With this shift, areas in the northern U.S. and Canada are dryer and warmer than usual. But in the U.S. Gulf Coast and Southeast, these periods are wetter than usual and have increased flooding.
El Niño affects the weather worldwide, so It’s not just the Americas suffering. There are heat waves all over the world right now, per CNN:
A searing heat wave in India killed at least 44 people across the state of Bihar. China, too, has experienced several blistering heat waves and it registered the highest number of hot days – where the maximum daily temperature exceeded 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) – over a six-month period since records began.
The UK recorded the hottest June since records began in 1884, according to the country’s national weather service, the Met Office. The average temperature for the month was 15.8 degrees Celsius (60.4 Fahrenheit), breaking the previous record by 0.9 degree Celsius.
Make no mistake; this trend is man-made. Per The Washington Post:
Tuesday’s record–breaking temperature is partly explained by climate change causing the world to heat up, [Myles] Allen said, adding that global temperatures are already 1.25 degrees Celsius (2.25 degrees Fahrenheit) above their preindustrial average. “It’s warming 0.25 degrees Celsius a decade,” he said. “That’s why we see records broken continuously, rather than just as one-offs.”
So, with all this in mind, is there any hope for the planet that we can stave off this kind of heat from becoming the norm? Yes, but, well, time is running out.
“Looking to the future, we can expect global warming to continue and hence temperature records to be broken increasingly frequently, unless we rapidly act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero,” [Paulo] Ceppi [Climate Scientist at the Grantham Institute in London] warned.
All I can say is, remember this dire situation when you vote because one party believes in climate change and is trying to combat it, and one party thinks it’s a literal joke. Per Newsweek:
Representative Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican, recently joked that she “absolutely” believes in climate change. “Now listen, Eagle County, I will go on the record with you all tonight and say that I absolutely believe in climate change. It happens four times every year,” Boebert said while speaking to supporters in Colorado. In a video posted to Twitter by PatriotTakes on Monday afternoon, several laughs and cheers can be heard from those in attendance following the congresswoman’s comments.
(featured image: scottiebumich/Getty Images)
