This summer has already seen unprecedented heat in many places. It started with a record-breaking heat dome in June in the United States. Alaska had its first-ever heat advisory that month. Europe has seen triple-digit temperatures in cities like Paris, Madrid, and Rome and even in places like Austria, Sarjevo, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Serbia. On June 28th, a temperature of 96.8 degrees was measured in Biasca, Switzerland.
According to the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world is getting hotter, faster. Human-caused global warming is now increasing by 0.27 degrees Celsius per decade. That rate was recorded at 0.2 degrees in the 1970s and has been increasing ever since.
Climate scientists have long predicted that the rate of warming in the atmosphere would speed up, which has been evident from measurements for quite a while. But now, these trends that have mostly been seen in charts and graphs are playing a growing role in people’s lives.
Each increase in the global mean temperature brings about a relatively larger increase in atmospheric extremes that include powerful downpours and severe droughts and wildfires. According to climate models, extreme rainfall intensifies by 7% with each degree Celsius of atmospheric warming. But recent data indicates that such record-shattering events are increasing at double that rate.
The current US administration may not accept the reality of the changing climate, but the planet really doesn’t care what it believes.
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The World Is Warming Up. And It’s Happening Faster.
Photo, posted August 28, 2013, courtesy of Tadas Balčiūnas via Flickr.
Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio
