-According to specialists, the extreme heat had an impact on African nations in the Northern Hemisphere including Mali and Egypt.
John Cassim
Harare, Zimbabwe (CZ)—According to data from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction, Tuesday, July 4, 2023, was the hottest day on Earth since at least 1979, with a global average surface temperature of 17.18 degrees Celsius.
According to some scientists, July 4 may have been one of the planet’s hottest days in 125 000 years because of a dangerous trifecta of rising temperatures brought on by climate change, the reemergence of the El Nino trend, and the arrival of summer in the Northern Hemisphere.
The Washington Post reports that, at least 57 million people in the United States were exposed to dangerous temperatures.
On the same day, China was battling a sizzling heat wave; the Antarctic is hotter than usual during winter; and north African countries such as Egypt and Mali, were greatly affected by soaring temperatures.
Tuesday’s temperatures saw portions of Antarctica jump above freezing for the first time ever.
August 14, 2016 was the hottest day that was ever experienced, with a global temperature of 16.92 degrees Celsius during an El Nino.
On Monday, July 3, an average temperature of 17.01 degrees Celsius was recorded, making it the first time such a temperature has been recorded since 2016.
That became the warmest temperature ever, at least in this 44-year span, and then on July 4, it came up to 17.18 degrees Celsius.
Meanwhile, fears are growing that the northern hemisphere could be hit by storms and disease outbreaks such as Malaria.
America is likely going to experience big storms in the summer, causing a lot of damaging winds across the country.
Diseases that are passed by insects, such as malaria, may last longer while spreading faster further north as those warmer climates shift north as well.
Mali is one of the African countries affected, where the night temperatures at the gateway to the Sahara desert were felt to be very hot.
A heat wave was recorded in some parts of Egypt, with temperatures averaging 37.7 degrees Celsius.
Katharine Hayhoe, The Nature Conservancy chief scientist and a climate scientist at Texas Tech, reportedly said, “This is one more reminder of the inexorable upward trend that will only be halted by decisive actions to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, invest in nature, and achieve net zero.”
Last year, a report from a U.N. panel of 278 top climate experts warned that the planet was on track to surpass the globally agreed target of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Beyond that threshold, scientists fear that people will not be able to adapt to climate-induced disasters such as heat waves, famines, and infectious diseases.