Temperatures around the globe reached their highest point on record Tuesday, according to U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction.
This data shows that the average global temperature reached 62.92 degrees Fahrenheit. Last year, it was around 61.95 degrees on the same day.
According to The Washington Post, scientists believe July 4 may have been one of the hottest days on Earth going back around 125,000 years. Factors contributing to the heatwave could be climate change, the return of the El Niño pattern and summer in the northern hemisphere.
“Tuesday’s global average temperature was calculated by a model that uses data from weather stations, ships, ocean buoys and satellites, Paulo Ceppi, a climate scientist at London’s Grantham Institute, explained in an email Wednesday,” the Post reported. “This modeling system has been used to estimate daily average temperatures starting in 1979.”
Audacy reported on triple-digit temperatures popping up across the U.S. late last month. Heading into the July 4 holiday week, the National Weather Service expected severe heat and triple digit temperatures to continue.
In fact, Monday broke the record for highest global temperature, 62.62, before it was shattered again Tuesday. Previously, a 62.26 record was set in August 2016, during the last El Niño cycle.
By Wednesday, the National Weather Service said that heat was expected to reach its peak intensity over portions of the Pacific Northwest, while Excessive Heat Warnings and Critical Fire Risk were in effect for Arizona. Due to strong weather fronts, some parts of the U.S. were also experiencing record low temperatures.
Current conditions could bring more record-breaking heat, according to at least one scientist.
“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 with The Washington Post Wednesday.
“It’s a triple whammy.”
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Earth’s temperature has risen by an average of 0.14 degrees Fahrenheit every decade since 1880. Since 1981, that pace has been getting faster and the 10 warmest years on historical record have all occurred since 2010.
“The amount of future warming Earth will experience depends on how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases we emit in coming decades,” the administration explained. “Today, our activities – burning fossil fuels and clearing forests – add about 11 billion metric tons of carbon (equivalent to a little over 40 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide) to the atmosphere each year. Because that is more carbon than natural processes can remove, atmospheric carbon dioxide increases each year.”
Allen said that a simple solution could help deal with this problem. He proposes “capturing carbon dioxide, either where it is generated or recapturing it from the atmosphere and disposing of it back underground,” to decrease fossil fuel use.
Ceppi also warned that, unless we rapidly act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero, more record-breaking heat days can be expected. Earlier this year, the White House released net zero emissions goals for the U.S.
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