An El Nino formed in June and scientists say this one looks strong. She and other climate scientists say long-term warming from burning coal, oil and natural gas is the chief cause of rising temperatures, along with occasional boosts from natural El Nino warmings across parts of the Pacific, like the planet is experiencing this year.Įl Nino is a natural temporary warming of parts of the Pacific that changes weather patterns worldwide and adds an extra warm boost. “The details of course matter, but the thing that really matters, especially for the impressionist painting, is when you step back and take a look at everything that’s happening,” Mahowald said. Think of the individual statistics as brush strokes in a painting of the world’s climate, Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald said.

“I don’t think it captures the human sense, but it really does underscore that we live in a different world,” Field said of the records. The scientific community “doesn’t really have the vocabulary to communicate what it feels like,” said Stanford University climate scientist Chris Field, who co-chaired a groundbreaking United Nations report in 2012 warning of the dangers of extreme weather from climate change. Human nature is just drawn to the extreme things out of curiosity.”īut the numbers can be flawed in what they portray. “It’s like the Guinness Book of World Records. “Everybody’s drawn to extremes,” Vose said. The daytime heat was accompanied by a record stretch of nights that never fell below 90 Fahrenheit (32.2 Celsius). It kept going, reaching a 22nd straight day on Friday. cities on Tuesday when it marked a 19th consecutive day of unrelenting mega heat: 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius) or more. Phoenix grabbed headlines among major U.S.

Still, some local specifics are striking: Death Valley has flirted this summer with the hottest temperature in modern history, though that 134 degree Fahrenheit (56.7 Celsius ) record is in dispute. So the hottest global June is “extremely unlikely” to happen without climate change, as opposed to one city’s daily record, Texas state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said. The larger the geographic area and the longer stretch of time during which records are set, the more likely the conditions represent climate change rather than daily weather.

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