Tuesday was an absolutely astounding day around the planet. In city after city, previous all-time high temperature records weren’t just broken, they were shattered. In Rome, it was 109.2 degrees Fahrenheit. In parts of Spain, over 112 degrees. In Sicily, over 115 degrees.
On the same day, temperatures in Sanbao, China, hit 126 degrees while in Death Valley, it reached 129 degrees. That last number was a record for the date, but it still fell short of the all-time high, which was a supposed 134 degrees recorded at Death Valley in 1913. (Many sources have bumped that number down to 130 degrees, citing issues with the 1913 reading.) If the Death Valley number wasn’t an all-time high it was the only one, because at those other locations the temperature records for any date were broken by as much as 3.5 degrees.
It’s not just the absolute heat that’s amazing, it’s the persistence. Almost a year ago, the world set an all-time high temperature reading on July 24, 2022. That value tied the old record, set in 2016, for a single day. Then it dropped back.
This year is different. On July 3, 2023, the old temperature record was broken. Since then the temperature has never fallen to what had been the previous record. For 17 straight days, the Earth has been hotter than it was on any previous date in the last 100,000 years. And by some measures, the rise in temperature this year alone matches all the warming over the last 15 years. The climate crisis has ceased being a marathon and become a sprint.
The reason that we’re seeing this warm up isn’t particularly mysterious: A cool La Niña current was in place in the eastern Pacific from 2020 to 2023. Thanks to that current, enormous amounts of heat were carried down into the ocean, warming deep waters to record levels but keeping the land from feeling the full brunt of excess heat being trapped by layers of man-made greenhouse gasses. That La Niña ended earlier this year and has been replaced by a strong El Niño current. The change in circulation means the oceans are no longer soaking up the excess heat so effectively.
Temperatures on both the land and the surface of the oceans are going up rapidly. Sea surface temperatures are even hotter than air temperatures compared to their respective averages over the last two decades.
But of course, there have been La Niña periods in the past followed by strong El Niño—even “Super” El Niño periods. Many of those cycles have produced years that were warmer than the years just before them. However, none of those past cycles have generated the kind of increase seen so far in 2023. The increase in temperatures due to the blanket of man-made greenhouse gasses was already a crisis. It’s getting warmer, and will keep getting warmer until we eliminate enough of that greenhouse blanket to let the world cool down, or at least stay even. Now that crisis seems to be in overdrive, fast-forwarding to conditions many hoped we wouldn’t see for decades.
The persistence of the heat can be seen in cities like Phoenix, which has experienced 19 straight days with temperatures in excess of 110 degrees.
When it comes to Day 20, conditions in Phoenix are even more terrifying.
And now that the results are in for Thursday, the streak has been extended to 21 days, with today’s high hitting 119 degrees F.
The result of that prolonged heat is a growing death toll, even in a city where air conditioning is nearly ubiquitous. At least 18 people were dead from heat related causes as of Tuesday.
As Mother Jones reported last week, the extreme weather is having an effect on “human health, ecosystems, economies, agriculture, energy and water supplies.” In May, the United States Department of Agriculture predicted booming crops of both corn and soybeans in the United States; so far those projections seem to be holding up in spite of the intense heat and frequent storms. But areas of Europe such as the Netherlands, where temperatures tend to be cooler and more consistent, the record heat is already bringing talk of crop failures and loss of livestock. Combined with the potential loss of grain out of Ukraine due to Russia’s withdrawal from a deal that had allowed export of wheat and corn in spite of the ongoing war, the world faces the potential for significant shortages of food in the coming months.
Awful as all this sounds, it’s far from over. As The Washington Post reports:
Forecasts show the extreme heat expanding through this weekend, with approximately 80 million people experiencing a temperature or heat index above 105 degrees, according to the National Weather Service, and continuing well into next week.
It’s worth visiting the Post article just to moan over the series of maps that detail the upcoming misery.
The reason things just keep getting worse in the short term is that the “heat dome” over the southern U.S. and Mexico keeps intensifying. This heat dome is actually an area of high pressure that traps an area of heat. More heat results in more high pressure. More high pressure traps more heat. Eventually this system will become unstable and fall apart. Unfortunately, that’s not happening today.
And the same thing is going to continue over Europe.
Right now there’s an entire band of these heat domes looped around the world, each one acting as a frying pan for the area of the planet within its boundaries. The edges of these heat domes are also associated with strong storms, so even for those not in the middle of the heat, the situation can be far from ideal.
The extreme heat is straining electrical grids in many areas. When survival depends on running an air conditioner, then people will run an air conditioner even if they are being warned to cut back on electrical use. Combine high demand and those powerful storms, and the result is electrical repair crews scrambling to keep things running across the nation.
In some areas, renewable energy is proving to be the key to keeping up with increased demand. In Texas, with its often unreliable independent grid and often extremely high demand-driven pricing, the last few weeks would have seen soaring prices or even widespread grid failures were it not for one thing: solar power.
This globe-girdling heat wave will end sometime in the next few weeks, but 2023 isn’t the end of the process. It’s not even the middle.
The Biden administration has injected record levels of funding into the research, development, and deployment of renewable energy. But companies need to move fast, because if you think this year is hot … just wait until 2024.
