A Deadly Heat Wave After the Hottest June On Record: How the Climate Crisis Is Creating ‘a New Normal’

As millions of people prepare for sweltering heatwaves in the U.S. Midwest and East Coast, scientists say July will likely be the hottest July on record, following the hottest June on record. These types of heatwaves are expected to become more frequent throughout the world as global warming continues, say scientists. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports the average global temperature for June was 1.71 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average of 59.9 degrees. NOAA also reported record-breaking decreases in sea ice coverage in the Arctic and Antarctica. “Our climate is warming,” Ahira Sánchez-Lugo, a climatologist at NOAA, tells TIME. “We have a new normal, we are in a new warmer climate. Just in the 21st century, we’ve set a new global world temperature record five times.” Robert Rohde, lead scientist at Berkeley Earth, tells TIME that July is also likely to be the hottest July on record, as global temperatures continue to trend towards increasing heat. Regionally, hot June temperatures broke records in Europe, Africa and South America, and it was the hottest first half of the year for Alaska, Madagascar, New Zealand, Mexico, western Canada and eastern Asia. Overall between January through June, the temperature averaged out to 1.71 degrees above the 20th century average of 55.3, tying with 2017 as the hottest year so far. Rohde says this trend can be attributed to human emissions of greenhouse gases....
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate onetime weather World Source Type: news