episodes

The past 12 months have been the hottest ever measured across the globe. This may not be everyone’s experience in every location, but the average person on Earth experienced 26 more days of abnormally high temperatures than they would have in the absence of climate change.

Researchers considered a given day’s temperature to be abnormally high in a particular location if it exceeded 90% of the daily temperatures recorded there between 1991 and 2020. Nearly 80% of the world’s population experienced at least 31 days of abnormal warmth since May of 2023. Theoretically, the number of unusually warm days would have been far fewer in the absence of global warming.

In some countries, the extra-warm days added up to two or three weeks. In others, such as Colombia, Indonesia, and Rwanda, there were up to 4 months of them. The average American experienced 39 days of extra-warm temperatures since last May.

Scientists also added up how many extreme heat waves the planet experienced since last May. These are defined as episodes of unseasonable warmth across a large area, lasting three or more days, and causing significant loss of life or disruption to infrastructure or industry. In total, the researchers identified 76 such episodes, affecting 90 countries, on every continent except Antarctica.

The world’s climate is now shifting toward the La Niña phase of the cyclical pattern called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. This usually leads to cooler temperatures on average, but the recent heat could have lingering effects on weather and storms for months to come, including what is expected to be an extraordinarily active Atlantic hurricane season.

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Climate Change Added a Month’s Worth of Extra-Hot Days in Past Year

Photo, posted December 21, 2011, courtesy of Maggie Lin Photography via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The wildfires last summer in parts of the U.S. and Canada fouled the air over much of the country. Air quality in many places was dangerous for human health. And such fires are becoming more numerous and more intense.

A new study by the University of Iowa has assessed the effects of two decades of wildfires on air quality and human health in the continental U.S.

From 2000 to 2020, air quality in the western U.S. has gotten worse as a result of the numerous fires in that region. More generally, all those fires have undermined the success of federal efforts to improve air quality, primarily through the reductions in automobile emissions.

American air had been getting cleaner and clearer as a result of EPA regulations on vehicle emissions, but the surge in wildfires has limited and, in some cases, erased these air quality gains. Twenty years of efforts by the EPA to make our air cleaner have been lost in fire-prone areas and in many downwind areas.

The Iowa study looked at the concentration of black carbon, a fine-particle air pollutant from fires linked to respiratory and heart disease. In the western U.S., black carbon concentrations have risen 86% on an annual basis.

Fires have also affected the air in the Midwest, although not to the same degree as in the west. The eastern U.S. had no major declines in air quality during the 2000-2020 time period. Given the episodes of smoke from Canadian wildfires experienced by the east coast this past summer – as far south as Florida – even the air in that part of the country is suffering from the spread of wildfires.

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Wildfires have erased two decades’ worth of air quality gains in western US

Photo, posted June 8, 2023, courtesy of Anthony Quintano via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

A month of extra-hot days

The past 12 months have been the hottest ever measured across the globe. This may not be everyone’s experience in every location, but the average person on Earth experienced 26 more days of abnormally high temperatures than they would have in the absence of climate change.

Web Links

Wildfires and air quality

The wildfires last summer in parts of the U.S. and Canada fouled the air over much of the country. Air quality in many places was dangerous for human health. And such fires are becoming more numerous and more intense.

Web Links