2023-07-06 12:18:00
The average temperature of the Earth has marked three consecutive historical maximums this week following Tuesday’s record was equaled on Wednesday, a day that had been exceeded on Monday. For scientists, this is the latest evidence of human-driven climate change.
The average global temperature on Wednesday was 17.18 degrees Celsius (62.9 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a tool that uses satellite data and computer simulations to measure world conditions and whose data dates back to 1979. .
That figure matched the record set Tuesday and came following the previous high of 17.01 Celsius (62.6 degrees Fahrenheit) was set on Monday.
Scientists have warned for months that 2023 might see record heat as human-caused climate change, driven in large part by the burning of fossil fuels like coal, natural gas and oil, warms the atmosphere.
They also noted that La Niña, the natural cooling of the ocean that had acted as a counterbalance to that warming, was giving way to El Niño, the reverse event marked by warming of the oceans. The North Atlantic has seen a record temperature this year.
“A record like this is yet another piece of evidence for the now widely held proposition that global warming is pushing us toward a warmer future,” said Chris Field, a Stanford University climatologist who was not part of the calculations.
University of Maine climatologist Sean Birkle, creator of Climate Reanalyzer, said the daily numbers aren’t official, but they are a useful snapshot of what’s happening in a warming world.
While the numbers are not an official government record, “this gives us an indication of where we are now,” said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) chief scientist Sarah Kapnick. NOAA indicated that it will take the figures into account for its calculations of official records.
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Kapnick said that given other data, the world is likely to see the hottest day in “several hundred years that we’ve experienced.”
On Wednesday, 38 million Americans were under some form of heat alert, Kapnick said.
That included communities not used to feeling so hot. In North Grenville, Ontario, the city turned ice hockey rinks into cooling centers as temperatures reached 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) on Wednesday, with humidity that felt 100.4 degrees (38 degrees Celsius).
“I feel like we live in a tropical country right now,” said city spokeswoman Jill Sturdy. “It just hits you. The air is so thick,” she added.
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With many places with temperatures nearing 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius), the average temperature records may not seem very high. But Tuesday’s global maximum was nearly 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (a full degree Celsius) higher than the 1979-2000 average, which already exceeded the averages of the 20th and 19th centuries.
High temperature records were broken this week in Quebec and Peru. Beijing reported nine days in a row last week with temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit), ordering a halt to all outdoor work on Wednesday as more high temperatures were forecast.
Extreme heat in the United States
In the US, from Medford, Oregon, to Tampa, Florida, temperatures have been swinging at all-time highs, said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Alan Harris, director of emergency management for Seminole County, Florida, said the county already surpassed last year in the number of days it activated its extreme weather plan, something that happens when the heat index hits 108 Fahrenheit or further.
“It’s just been brutally hot for the last week, and now it looks like it’s potentially going to last two weeks,” Harris said.
In the US, heat advisories include parts of western Oregon, inland far north California, central New Mexico, Texas, Florida and the coastal Carolinas, according to the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center. Excessive heat warnings continue in southern Arizona and California.
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