The globe just had its hottest summer on record
Source: Axios
6 hours ago
The global average surface temperatures from June through August were the hottest on record, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Why it matters: The period, which comprises summer in the Northern Hemisphere, brought a spate of extreme heat, wildfires and other extreme events.
Europe had its hottest summer on record, with deadly heat events repeatedly affecting Greece, Italy and Spain, along with wildfires.
Zoom in: Copernicus, an EU science center, now projects that 2024 will surpass 2023 as the globe's hottest year on record.
The planet had its hottest August on record, tied with the same month the year before. Thirteen of the past 14 months have seen global average surface temperatures that exceeded 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, which is a key warming target under the Paris Agreement. In July, the globe recorded a string of the four hottest days on record stretching back for at least 100,000 years.
Yes, but: That pact referred to long-term averages, on the timescale of several decades, rather than a far shorter timespan of 13 months.
Read more: https://www.axios.com/2024/09/06/earth-hottest-summer-globe
Link to EU Copernicus PRESS RELEASE - Copernicus: Summer 2024 – Hottest on record globally and for Europe
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(in a rim county of Philly), the previous owner had planted a FL-native tree - a long-needle pine - in the front yard (it took me awhile to get it identified because it doesn't belong up here but I was able to get an ID from a conifer specialist back then). Here it is 20 years later and it is still there and growing just fine (it got some winter damage earlier on in the mid-2010s, but shrugged it off).
She also has a Celeste fig growing against the back (SW-facing) corner of her house that she planted maybe 8 years ago (the previous one planted in 2003 got killed to the ground after 2, back-to-back icy winters around 2013/2014). She harvested a pile of ripe figs a couple weeks ago from the now 8-10ft tall shrub. I wrapped it for her the first couple winters (it was a 2gal/3ft tall size originally) and once it was established, it was on its own.
My other sister had bought a house a few years earlier and the previous owner was actually a horticulturalist who had all kinds of specimen perennials, shrubs, and trees around the yard and one of them included a spring-blooming, evergreen camellia with huge double pink flowers. The cammy is still there (now about 15ft tall) blooming every spring (I remember having to look that up too because it was another that didn't belong up here 
).
We now have full tree-sized crape myrtles planted all around my neighborhood (although I know some are the more hardy hybridized ones, but I still recall a trip down to Atlanta back in the late-'90s wondering what the heck those hot pink flowering shrubs and trees were). We also have evergreen southern magnolias thriving here, another breakthrough, where previously, the deciduous saucer magnolia was the norm.
The city's "official" low temperature hasn't gone below 0F in 30 years as of this year (last time was January 1994).
Climate change is real!
Back 20 years ago, we were USDA Hardiness Zone 6b and we are now Zone 7b with the 2023 release (where a 7a update happened in the 2012 version).
I can remember a hotter summer in 1988, when it was in the 90's for about 8 weeks straight with no rain. People actually died from the extended heatwave that year.
The thing about Pittsburgh and southwestern PA is that we don't often get sunny days here, even in the summer. The moist air coming up the Ohio River Valley meets up with the moist winds coming down from the Great Lakes, and the result is that we get a lot of cloudy days. It doesn't always mean rain, but we get a lot of that too.
This past summer the winds were different, and we didn't get so many cloudy days. We got a lot of sun and many days up in the 90s, with not so much rain. It's nice to see blue skies and sun, but not when your grass dies brown and your veggie garden won't grow.
I hope next year we get more balance between warm sunny days and occasional rain. The thing I like about living in Pittsburgh is that we don't often get big storms here, and the snow isn't too bad in winter. We're actually very fortunate compared to other areas of the country.
