Recently, NASA announced that July 2023 was the warmest month since 1880.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying even a little attention. Earth’s fever has been transformed into a painful reality by the heartbreaking catastrophes that are continuously plaguing the planet.
“NASA data confirms what billions of people felt firsthand: July 2023 was the hottest month on record due to temperature increases. Americans are currently directly feeling the effects of the climate catastrophe across the nation, according to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
The science is unambiguous. Since it’s the only one we have, we must take immediate action to safeguard our communities and [our livable] planet.
We had 36 days in a row of temperatures higher than the previous record from July 3 to August 7.
Tens of millions of people have had to directly experience the extreme heat over the past several months due to the massive amount of fossil fuels we’ve pumped into our atmosphere and Earth’s transition from La Nino to El Niño. In China, hundreds of people died from heat-related ailments, while many others sought relief from the heat in air raid shelters.
The atmosphere, glaciers, and ocean systems on Earth have been severely damaged by this extra energy. Parts of the US, Middle East, Asia, and Europe were hit by floods caused by storms and monsoons as flames ravaged Canada, Russia, Europe, Africa, and Hawaii.
In light of these data, NOAA estimates that 2023 has a 50% chance of being the hottest year since humans started keeping records.
“2023 to date has been the third warmest on record,” said Sarah Kapnick, chief scientist at NOAA.
“There is a nearly 50% chance that 2023 will rank as the warmest year on record, making it virtually certain that it will rank among the five warmest years on record.”
Uncharted land is where we are.
El Nio’s greatest effects will be felt in 2024, according to Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who spoke to AFP. Therefore, “we anticipate that 2024 will be warmer still, in addition to 2023 being exceptionally warm and possibly a record warm year.”
All of this is taking place at a warming rate of only 1.1°C, and we have already locked in another 0.4°C of warming. For many creatures, ecosystems, homes, and people individually, it’s already too late.
Due to the extreme heat, coral reefs off the US coast completely perished, thwarting efforts to aid in reef recovery and boost their resilience.
It’s still not too late to take action, though. Every tenth of a degree we can reduce will prevent countless deaths in the future.
Furthermore, even if they are alarming, these extremes and the related events fall within the range of estimates made by climate models when El Nio conditions are taken into account.
According to Berkley scientist Zeke Hausfather, “just because things are not “worse than we feared” in terms of global temperatures does not mean that the problem is not serious and getting worse.”
Stopping fossil fuel emissions remains the top priority despite decades of warnings, yet the firms who are responsible continue to make astounding profits with the ongoing support of global leaders.
Earth’s fever will persist until we implement some significant, systemic adjustments.
