July 4, 2023, had two things to celebrate: American independence and setting the record as the hottest day in world history.
According to the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction, Tuesday marked the hottest day on Earth since at least 1979, with the global average temperature soaring to a scorching 62.92 degrees Fahrenheit. (The typical global average temperature is around 57 degrees Fahrenheit.) The alarming rise in temperatures has sparked concerns among scientists, who believe that July 4 may have been one of the hottest days our planet has ever experienced.
As temperatures reached extreme levels, the repercussions were felt worldwide. In the United States alone, a staggering 57 million people were exposed to hazardous heat conditions on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post’s extreme heat tracker. Meanwhile, China battled a relentless heatwave, the Antarctic experienced higher-than-usual temperatures during its winter season, and parts of northern Africa reached 122 degrees Fahrenheit, as reported by Reuters.
Experts attribute the unprecedented heatwave to a combination of factors, including climate change-induced global temperature surge, the reemergence of the El Niño pattern and the onset of summer in the northern hemisphere.
It is worth noting that this was not the first time the temperature record was shattered this week. Just the day before, on Monday, the average temperature reached 62.62 degrees Fahrenheit, surpassing the previous record of 62.46 degrees Fahrenheit set on August 14, 2016.
Over the next several months, scientists anticipate more record-breaking days of heat.
“The global temperature record is a combination of natural variation in the climate and the underlying global warming trend,” explained Paulo Ceppi, a climate scientist at London’s Grantham Institute. “Looking to the future, we can expect global warming to continue and hence temperature records to be broken increasingly frequently, unless we rapidly act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero.”
