Out-of-control heat is making Earth more "weird" -- and more deadly
Out-of-control heat is making Earth more "weird" and more deadly
For 13 straight months, global heat records have been shattered. This is unprecedented in human history
By MATTHEW ROZSA
Staff Writer
PUBLISHED JULY 11, 2024 5:30AM (EDT)
(
Salon) For the 13th consecutive month, Earth's average monthly temperature has broken all previous records, continuing a streak that began in June 2023. Significantly, the European climate service Copernicus added that that the world has been 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than pre-industrial levels for more than a year, pushing the planet up against the threshold established by the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
"It's a stark warning that we are getting closer to this very important limit set by the Paris Agreement," Copernicus senior climate scientist Nicolas Julien told NPR. "The global temperature continues to increase. It has at a rapid pace."
Yet although climate activists and political leaders alike are urging the public to pay attention to these record-breaking temperatures, experts agree that the most important details are not the statistics: It is the thousands of innocent people from Saudi Arabia and India to Maricopa County in Arizona who are dying from heat-related deaths because of global heating.
"Along with this warming, we see increases in deadly heat waves and droughts, but also an increased experience of 'global weirding,'" Dr. Twila Moon, a climatologist and deputy lead scientist at NASA's National Snow and Ice Data Center, told Salon. Such weirding, she explained, encompasses "more extreme weather events producing conditions that are entirely new for communities, weather whiplash as folks may experience quick swings between hot and cold or drought and flood, and many challenges for crops, wildlife, recreation, and being able to plan for what we previously considered normal weather conditions." .............(more)
https://www.salon.com/2024/07/11/out-of-control-heat-is-making-earth-more-weird--and-more/