Featured Image Credit: Ivan Kmit / Tenkorys / Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: Climate Change, Weather, News
Callum Jones
Topics: Climate Change, Weather, News
While many still try to deny it, the issue of climate change is seemingly heating up year by year.
Events such as COP take place every year, with world leaders and figures joining in a single location to try and tackle global warming.
And while strides to decrease how quickly our planet is heating up have been made, many have questioned whether enough is being done.
Now, those voices are only going to get louder as Tuesday (4 July) saw the hottest day ever recorded on Earth, according to scientists.
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And before you ask, no that wasn't due to the amount of fireworks being let off in the US to celebrate Independence Day.
The exact temperature figures are quite alarming, really.
Yesterday, the global average temperature reached 62.92 degrees Fahrenheit or 17.18 degrees Celsius, according to data collected by the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction.
4 July was the hottest day on Earth since such data was first collected in 1979, while some scientists believe it may have been one of the hottest days on Earth in a massive 125,000 years.
The reason for this alarming stat could be due to a number of things.
First of all, the impacts of climate change combined with the start of summer in the northern hemisphere have contributed to the record-breaking figure.
But perhaps the most important factor in this sudden increase is the return of the El Niño pattern.
The El Niño Southern Oscillation, as it is properly called, has three different phases: hot, cold or neutral.
The weather effect is the most powerful fluctuation in the entire climate system, with scientists confirming it was present in June.
Essentially, additional heat is now welling up to the surface of the Pacific Ocean, subsequently pushing up global temperatures.
A lot of the US has faced the brunt of that, with 57 million Americans exposed to dangerous heat on Tuesday, as per The Washington Post.
China is also embroiled in a heatwave, while temperatures in North Africa are said to have reached a whopping 122f, according to Reuters.
Speaking about the alarming figures, Paulo Ceppi, a climate scientist at London’s Grantham Institute, told The Washington Post: "This is our ‘best guess’ of what the surface temperature at each point on earth was yesterday.
"These data tell us that it hasn’t been this warm since at least 125,000 years ago, which was the previous interglacial."
Scientists are now warning that unless action is taken to reduce carbon emissions, temperatures are only set to increase in the years to come.