Scientists who measure global temperatures noticed that this past July 21 and 22 were 2 of the all-time hottest days on the entire planet Earth. Because the northern hemisphere has a larger area of land masses than the southern hemisphere, it tends to heat up more as heat is absorbed by land (and reflected from the oceans). In the U.S., there was a heat wave that stretched from coast to coast. The Pacific Northwest saw actual temperatures near 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and the northeastern U.S., as far north as Maine had heat indices near 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Here's the story.
Earth Just Had Its Two Warmest Days On Record Since 1940
Earth just had its two warmest days in over 80 years, topping a record set just one year ago.
The back-to-back records: On Sunday, July 21, 2024 globally averaged temperatures over the planet's oceans and land masses reached 17.09 degrees Celsius (62.76 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the European Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
That was 0.01 degrees Celsius above the previous warmest day for the planet set on July 6, 2023, in the ERA5 dataset dating to 1940, according to C3S.
SIDEBAR: How do you get a "Global Average Temperature"? Scientists take the high and low temperatures of Earth's land and ocean surfaces. It takes all the high temps and low temps and comes up with an average. For example, if a High temp is 60F and an overnight Low temp is 40F, add them together (=100F), then divide by 2 (100 /2 = 50F Average temperature)
************************************
Then Monday, July 22, 2024, the planet's average temperature ticked up to 17.15 degrees Celsius (63.5 Fahrenheit), leapfrogging Sunday's record.
According to a report from C3S released Tuesday, 58 separate days since July 3, 2023, have topped the previous planetary temperature record set on Aug. 13, 2016.
They all occurred between late June and early August. That's because it's during the Northern Hemisphere's summer. The larger land areas of the Northern Hemisphere heat faster than the land and ocean cool in Southern Hemisphere winter.
What this anomalous warmth looked like
Several areas of searing heat were on the map Monday.
Parts of eastern China and Japan were sweltering. Record late July heat was also in place over parts of the Middle East, northern Africa, Alaska, western Canada and the western United States.
Despite that, the C3S analysis found this latest planetary heat record was set due to a spike of above-average warmth in Antarctica, both over the continent and over the adjacent Southern Ocean with ice cover nearly as low as one year ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment