June 2021 welcomes the summer season with extreme heat and drought, surpassing warmest temperature records set in North America, according to European Union's Copernicus program new data.
The heat record measured by billions of observations from satellite, aircraft and weather stations around the world found that the month of June was the fourth-hottest month recorded worldwide and the second-warmest recorded in Europe.
The North-east region of Europe has warmed the most at its peak, while heatwave conditions remained in western North America which broke heat records.
NEW YORK - AUGUST 02: A thermometer in the sun on the sidewalk indicates a temperature of 120 degrees Fahrenheit as people eat ice cream on the Upper West Side August 2, 2006 in New York City. Forecasters have called for high temperatures of 100 degrees in the city with the heat wave continuing through tomorrow.
Climate experts like Prof Peter Stott, a climatologist of the UK Met Office, are convinced that the findings suggest an alarming phenomenon especially that the world is experiencing more heatwaves than ever.
According to a study on extreme heat in a Russian region, such temperatures are impossible to occur without human-induced climate change.
Summer Temperature Increasing by the Year
The 2021 heat condition 'smashed average summer temperatures' including the previous year of 2020 when NASA scientists rated 2020 as the second-hottest year after 2016.
Meanwhile, in Pacific Northwest and western Canada, a weather anomaly called 'omega block' or 'heat dome' was to blame for trapping scorching hot air in many US cities including Seattle and Portland, and the entire country of Canada.
Seattle experienced the 'hottest day ever' on June 28 with a scorching 108 degrees Fahrenheit (42 degrees Celsius) above normal, while Canada recorded the highest temperature nationwide for three days in a row, with 121 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius) on June 29.
With the ever-warming globe and changing climate, scientists did not find the data of 'hottest June' any new or surprising.
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New Concern for North America
The June 2021 heat wave data 'smashing' old records tells us that "changes in average climate are leading to rapid escalation not just of extreme temperatures, but of extraordinarily extreme temperatures," said Stott of the U.K. Met Office.
Prof Friederike Otto of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University agreed to Stott's statement, adding that the data is what Science expects exactly, and that rate of greenhouse gas emissions has rapidly increased globally every decade, which means it is just parallel that heat records are also being broken more frequently.
Scientists are afraid the increasing numbers are not taken into account enough. Compared to storms and flood that leaves dramatic images of damage, heatwaves are, on the other hand, 'silent killers', Otto added.
"People rarely drop dead on the street, but die quietly in their poorly insulated and un-air-conditioned homes."
The number of lives this event had claimed was beyond imaginable. Prof Otto advices that reducing greenhouse gas emissions in countries around the globe as much as possible, as heatwaves are expected to be felt more frequently. In addition, communities should also develop and invest in resilient and mitigation plans to cope with the unpredictable, phenomenal events such as the rising temperature of the globe.
As what scientists would say, these events are not the new normal, but 'precursor' of more to come.
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