Boiling

The globe is not just warming. It’s boiling, says Antonio Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations.

He said so on July 27, 2023, after the hottest three-week period ever recorded during the month.

The world’s hottest month ever is July 2023, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The hottest day ever is July 6, 2023, when the highest global average temperature was recorded at 17.08°C (62.74°F). WMO still has to confirm this claim.

July 2023 was 0.72°C warmer than the 1991-2020 average for July, and 0.33°C warmer than the previous warmest month, July 2019.

July 2023 is estimated to have been around 1.5°C warmer than the average during 1850-1900.

UN chief Guterres, quoting scientists, blames humans for the earth apparently reaching its boiling point. “Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning. The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived,” he says, with hyperbole.

“The air is unbreathable. The heat is unbearable. And the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable,” Guterres complains.

Previously, scientists have warned that the earth must not warm higher than 1.5ºC from the pre-industrial age. The 1.5 is likely to be exceeded.

Scientists agree the extra heat is mainly linked to fossil fuel use. Fossil fuels are crude oil, coal and natural gas.

US President Joseph Biden has called climate change an “existential threat,” adding, no one “can deny the impact of climate change anymore.”

Temperatures have risen so high in Europe Italy now plans to grow tropical fruits like mangoes, papaya, avocado and passion fruit.

During July 2023:

• Heatwaves were experienced in multiple regions of the Northern Hemisphere, including southern Europe.

• Well-above average temperatures occurred over several South American countries and around much of Antarctica.

• Global average sea surface temperatures continued to rise, after a long period of unusually high temperatures since April 2023, reaching record high levels in July.

• For July 2023 as a whole, global average sea surface temperatures were 0.51°C above the 1991-2020 average.

• The North Atlantic was 1.05°C above average in July, as temperatures in the northeastern part of the basin remained above average, and unusually high temperatures developed in the northwestern Atlantic.

• Marine heatwaves developed south of Greenland and in the Labrador Sea, in the Caribbean basin and across the Mediterranean Sea.

• El Niño conditions continued to develop over the equatorial eastern Pacific.

• According to Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S): “Global air temperatures and global ocean surface temperatures set new all-time records in July. These records have dire consequences for both people and the planet exposed to ever more frequent and intense extreme events.”

“2023 is currently the third warmest year to date at 0.43ºC above the recent average, with the average global temperature in July at 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. Even if this is only temporary, it shows the urgency for ambitious efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, which are the main driver behind these records.”

The high temperatures have been related to heatwaves in large parts of North America, Asia and Europe which, along with wildfires in countries including Canada and Greece, have had major impacts on people’s health, the environment and economies.

NASA (National Aeronautics Space Administration) blames human activity for increased greenhouse gas emissions.

A NASA study in March 2023 confirms that major droughts and pluvials – period of excessive precipitation and water storage on land – have indeed been occurring more often.

NASA scientists found that the worldwide intensity of these extreme wet and dry events – a metric that combines extent, duration and severity – is closely linked to global warming.

From 2015-2021 – seven of the nine warmest years in the modern record – the frequency of extreme wet and dry events was four per year, compared with three per year in the previous 13 years.

Warmer air causes more moisture to evaporate from Earth’s surface during dry events; warm air can also hold more moisture to fuel severe snowfall and rainfall events.

Per Wikipedia, over the last century, burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has increased the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

This increase happens because the coal or oil burning process combines carbon with oxygen in the air to make carbon dioxide. To a lesser extent, clearing of land for agriculture, industry and other human activities has increased concentrations of greenhouse gases.

Per NASA, the industrial activities that our modern civilization depends upon have raised atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by nearly 50 percent  since 1750. This increase is due to human activities.

According to NASA, the global temperature has risen by 1.1°C since the pre-industrial age. The sea level has risen by four inches since January 1993.  And ocean has been warming at the rate of five Hiroshima bombs of energy every second. Ice sheets are declining at the rate of 424 billion metric tons per year.

El Niño exacerbates hot temperatures driven by human-caused climate change and makes it more likely that heat records will be broken worldwide. Indeed, the first six months of 2023 were extremely warm, NOAA data show.

El Niño is a climate pattern that occurs when sea surface temperatures (SST) over the Central and Eastern Pacific Oceans warm up and affect air and sea currents. It increases the likelihood of below-normal rainfall conditions, potentially causing dry spells, droughts and other adverse environmental effects.

El Niño in the Philippines typically happens once every two to seven years. We are having El Niño this year.

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