CNN recently updated its global reporting on the record hot summer that the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing.
The heat and rain that Central Jersey has been experiencing has been shared on four continents. On Monday, Japan recorded a temperature never before reached on the island nation since reliable records began in the 1800s. The extreme temperatures are also affecting other countries in East Asia: South and North Korea have set heat records with temperatures climbing near 104 degrees. It is these types of heat waves that scientists have been warning would be a consequence of warming the planet through greenhouse gas emissions.
“The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle,” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist and director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University. “We are seeing them play out in real time in the form of unprecedented heat waves, floods, droughts and wildfires. And we’ve seen them all this summer,” he said.
Much of Europe has also been baking under a massive high-pressure ridge that is allowing tropical heat to climb all the way to the Arctic and blocking cooling rainfalls from ending the stretch of hot weather. Temperatures above 90 degrees extended to the northern reaches of Scandinavia, setting records in Sweden, Finland and Norway for stations above the Arctic Circle. The result has been a string of unprecedented wildfires in Sweden that have prompted the country to request assistance from other nations such as Italy, with more resources to fight wildfires.
The United Kingdom is off to its driest start to a summer, according to the Met Office, and it has been one of the hottest on record. The heat wave is ongoing, with a “level three heat-health watch” issued for much of south and east England through this week as temperatures will climb in to the 90s through Friday. An exceptional stretch of heat in Dallas-Fort Worth has brought four consecutive days with record highs, hitting 108 or 109 degrees each day.
July has seen 41 heat records set across the United States – but zero record minimums.
This lopsided tally has become the norm, as climate change has tipped the scales so far in the direction of warmer temperatures.This is climate change
“Cold and hot, wet and dry — we experience natural weather conditions all the time,” said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University.
“But today, climate change is loading the dice against us, making certain types of extremes, such as heat waves and heavy rain events, much more frequent and more intense than they used to be,” Hayhoe said.
Remember the series of brutal nor’easter snowstorms that hit New England during a particularly cold stretch in late winter and early spring? The frequent bouts of snow and ice had many people wondering, “what happened to global warming?”
Well, here it is. And this is what it looks like. Although it will still get cold during the winter and there will be colder-than-normal spells from time to time, the heat will return, and summers are getting hotter.
This year is the hottest La Niña year on record (the cooling of the ocean waters in the Pacific during La Niña tends to cool the planet), according to the World Meteorological Association, and with La Niña fading away and El Niño (which warms the Pacific Ocean) likely to take its place, things are only going to get hotter.
